The Influence Of Multitasking On Different Media Devices And Brain Structure

Don’t watch too much TV it will fry your brain! We have all heard that phrase some time in our lives, but is it really true? The answer is yes TV does cause negative effects on the brain as well as the body. My paper will address the problem of too much screen time on the brain and how it causes health problems. If the amount of time spent in front of a screen is related to brain problems, then regulating the amount of time spent in front of screens will decrease brain damage because the most common cause for brain damage is due to low levels of well-being, limiting the amount of screen time can help reduce brain damage, and too much screen time can also cause obesity.

In Alina Tugend’s article “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” the author discusses the dangers of attempting to multitask. Life in the twenty-first century tends to be fast paced which is one of the reasons why there is so much multitasking. Because we want everything fast, we try to get as many things accomplished in the shortest amount of time. According to “The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress,” a study that from April of 2007, while multitasking one is not able to produce as much. University of California professor Gloria Marks noticed that multitasking resulted in higher stress levels, workload, frustration, and pressure; such factors may bring about results that are less than acceptable.

Media multitasking is associated with symptoms of depression and social anxiety according to Mark W. Becker, Reem Alzahabi, and Christopher J. Hopwood’s study. These people conducted an experiment containing 318 participants. And the 318 people completed self-inventory tests to measure their media use, personality, depression, and social anxiety. The study suggests that the increased use of media multitasking show a risk to develop problems related to the individual’s mood and anxiety levels. With that being said this problem is raising concerns that media is replacing face to face interactions. “While overall media use among America’s youth increased by 20 percent over the past decade, the amount of time spent multitasking with media (simultaneously interacting with more than one form of media) increased by over 119 percent over the same period”( Becker, M. W., Alzahabi, R., & Hopwood, C. J. (2013)). Media multitasking has now been associated with attention control, meaning how to filter out any useless information and how to ignore distractions. Also in this study they looked at not only mood changes and anxiety disorders they also looked at traits of neuroticism and extraversion. All of these

Does multitasking increase or hinder your efficiency to preform or carry out a task. This has been the age old question in which people have been trying to answer. Many students now listen to music while doing homework as well as many adults do while working but is this actually getting things done in a timelier and efficient way? In my experiment I’m taking a group of children, giving them a simple math test while listening to music, then giving them a similar test in a quiet environment usually provided in a test taking area. I think the music will increase the overall scoring and increase the time of the students taking the test.

What is multitasking and how does it affect our everyday lives? Multitasking is defined as rapidity switching from one task to another or completing several tasks concurrently instead of focusing primarily on one task and one task only. Even though, multitasking can make a task more enjoyable it can also make our performance less efficient. I have come to find that though my personal experiences that multitasking is a normal act we perform in our everyday lives, and focusing on a single task is almost impossible. A few prime examples of everyday multitasking are listening to the radio while completing homework assignments or answering the telephone at work while typing daily logs. It is far more likely for an individual to be performed more than one task at a given time, even if multitasking is having a negative effect on our cognitive thinking and causing undesirable stress.

Their whole research is based on idea of multitasking, or in the other words, the handling of more than one task at the same time by a single person. Their sources state that engaged in multitasking, subject is not able to fully intake all the information that is being presented at the certain moment. Moreover, their research hypothesis is that subjects who activley use cell phone engaged in face to face conversation with a person who is not using their cell phone will be less likely to retain as much as information as someone who is not using cell phone. I really liked the way they organized everything and how they set up their experiment. Two groups, experimental and control were presented to the same set of questions about the states and president candidates. Expermiental group was asked to search up the results on the phone while being asked some of the questions. Control group was simply asked the questions without their usage of the phone. Really smart way of presenting how multitasking has an effect on the working memory! Their results support their hypothesis because control group was able to retain information better than experimental group.

In my article, some topics the researchers studied related more to the Hergenhahn chapter on Empiricism, Sensationalism, and Positivism. Primarily, my article related more on the topic of empiricism. The article investigated how a person’s attention of impulse factors into multitasking with the media. Also, on how the participants in the study working and long-term memory were affected with multitasking while using media. One thing discussed in the beginning of the chapter was how the mind takes notice to and puts aside sensory information. The mind was seen as actively altering sensory information, which would give it more meaning if not otherwise.

While you are able to do several things at the same time, multitasking can hinder a person’s ability to successfully complete several tasks until one has developed muscle memory. In ballet, I have noticed that the more attention I dedicate to a specific part of a step, the less I can perfectly complete the step as a whole. For example, if I am doing a pirouette combination, if I pay attention to balancing before I turn, I forget to spot. I attribute this to not having a complete muscle memory developed of doing a pirouette. I think that once you develop muscle memory for whatever task you are attempting to complete, the ability to multitask becomes easier. For example, you don’t have to remind yourself to breathe while you are reading a book,

A student typing a paper, while also listening to a podcast for another class is doing what we call multitasking, or the simultaneous partaking of multiple tasks. Often multitasking is analyzed and critiqued Multitasking has become a subject of debate in recent years because of its dominance in the lives of younger generations, and if it is detrimental or beneficial to our brains and larger society.

There is currently no proof that those with a larger brain are smarter than lose with a smaller brain.

Some people claim they are masters at “multitasking,” the ability to accomplish multiple tasks at once. Is multitasking really an effective way to work, though?

In one study on social interactions, Veronica Galván and her partners examined how multiple types of conversations, especially ones on the cell phone, can affect a person’s attention to detail in his or her surroundings, as well as his or her memory of those details (1). The results of their experiment allowed them to conclude that people are more likely to focus on and remember a one-sided discussion than a two-sided one, suggesting that cell phone conversations are more distracting to bystanders than conversations between two or more people (Galván 6).

Multitasking is becoming very significant on the workplace to complete the task in less time. In fact, some people believe that multitasking saves time and can be done at all together. On the other hand, some people think that it is a distracting activity which leads to a lack of concentration. According to David Silverman, “In Defense of Multitasking”, multitasking is “crucial to survival in today’s workplace” (522). However, I do not agree because multitasking reduces productivity, increases stress levels and it is, especially, problematic for students.

Multitasking is when more than one task is done at the same time by a single individual. Although multitasking may show others that you are capable of successfully finishing a task on your own showing signs of leadership, it may also give others negative effects within them mentally and physically, in like manner multitasking can give those a negative emotion. At the same time, Multitasking in some cases can be positive.

Multitasking is very common among college students, especially in lecture halls. In most cases, there would be no surprise if a student were to walk in a classroom and see over half the class distracted by their computers or cell phones. It is also seen within the dorm room or bedroom, when a student reading their textbook but taking breaks to send a text message. With the transition to college, there is more freedom given to students, and that freedom looks like technology in the lecture halls. Multitasking is the using two (or more) things that contradict each other in means of gaining attention in very different ways, ultimately dividing your attention (Pashler, Kang & Ip, 2013). Multitasking is commonly seen when a student is in lecture and being lectured to but also texting on their cell phone or online shopping all the while. This paper is research report, evaluating studies conducted on positive and negative correlations between multitasking while studying and the results seen in the student’s overall GPA.