Learning and the Multitasking Generation

Chelsea Gill
Summer 2017
Western Oregon University
 Ding. Tweet. Those are the interwoven sounds adolescents hear as they work to complete

daily tasks at work and school. Their temptations to look at multiple devices and complete

multiple tasks at once are so great they cannot resist the inability to focus on just one single task

at a time. Our society has become accustomed to a fast-paced, multitasking world in which many

of us do not know anything differently. When adolescents multitask, they are often doing

multiple things at one time. Their belief is they can get everything done quicker because they are

using multiple forms of learning to accomplish their tasks. However, does it really help get the

job done quicker? Not really. What happens is our brains lose focus. People switch from task to

task, which results in less work being accomplished. What forms of multitasking are prevalent

among the multitasking generation in the twenty first century? The use of the internet, laptops,

and text messaging all play a part in the distractions that are interwoven within the multitasking

generation and their learning. This paper will look learning and the negative effects on the

multitasking generation.

Todays net generation, or the multitasking generation, has created a generation of

young adolescents who want to make the most of each minute of the day, seizing opportunities

to seek information and communicate at the same time (Adams, 2012, p.6). Essentially, this

generation focuses on getting multiple things done as quickly as possible so they have more time

to focus on social activities rather than academic. Students of the net generation also prefer to

combine tasks as a way to save time for other unimportant tasks. This generation of learners

wants to be able to accomplish more in less time. Their focus is on efficiency and to look at ways

to get the job done as quickly as possible. In order to do this, young adolescents must be able to

multitask, and do so while the dings, beeps of text messaging, and tweeting of tweets are also

vying for their undivided attention.

 In a world where adolescents must be able to access anything and everything at a

moments notice, it is no surprise when they can use the internet to find information at the click

of a button or contact millions of people around the world. Yet, adolescents increasingly

connect withfriends and family via instant message, virtual visits, and fleeting meetings that

are rescheduled half a dozen times, then punctuated when they do occur by pings and beeps and

multitasking (Jackson, 2008, p. 13). By allowing the net generation to access 21st century skills,

it gave them the ability to use more in less time. This is what the current multitasking generation

believes in and participates in on a daily basis.

Similarly, Postman (1992) described technocracy as a speed up of the world where

people can get places faster, do things faster, accomplish more in a shorter time (p. 45). This

meant that those who chose to use the technology could accomplish more tasks in a shorter

amount of time; they could get from point A to point B with a click of a button rather than a

drive across town. Knowing what Postman knew back then, it seems as if he was predicting the

future of technology even before it had been discovered. However, his ideas and notions were

not fully developed and utilized in ways that adolescents use technocracy currently.

Internet

The current multitasking generation believes they are tuned in with everything that must

be accomplished and are able to retain the information that is simultaneously given to them. This

is not always accurate and as true as they believe. According to Lenart, Madden & Hitlin (2005),

many adolescents are becoming familiar with how to use the internet at a younger age and

spend 6.5 hours per day using electronic media [which] condenses 8.5 hours of activity into that

time by multitasking. This is because they feel they can work on multiple tasks at once with

accomplishing the given tasks. Adolescents also feel that using technology to get things done
quicker will allow them to feel more accomplished, when in fact it is doing the opposite. This is

because adolescents are only skimming the surface of the material rather than taking an inquiry-

based look at the task at hand.

Courage, Bakhtiar, Fitzpartrick, Kenny, and Brandeau (2015), they found that

multitasking diminishes performance, especially when task juggling produces interference,

distraction, and ultimately errors, lost time, and mental stress (p. 6). While adolescents believe

they are being efficient and successfully multitasking, they are actually leading to a decline in

their work and productivity. One of the biggest drawbacks of multitasking for adolescents within

this generation is their addictive usage of technology. Internet addiction has been looked at for a

correlation among multitasking. Research has found that many students who use technology to

multitask use it because they can do so much with it without the feeling as if they are truly

multitasking.

Laptops

Many adolescents and young adults have begun to use laptops as a way to complete

school assignments. Laptops encourage adolescents to multitask. Why? The reason is because of

the ability to have multiple things up and running at once. Their belief is that multitasking is a

natural part of the modern classroom and work environments and students need to learn to

multitask effectively especially in todays high tech world (Kraushaar & Novak, 2010, p.

241). With that notion in mind, their laptops go everywhere. On trips; to class; even to the local

library to conduct research.

Carrier, Rosen, Cheever, and Lim (2015) found that laptops allow adolescents to run

multiple programs or applications and keep several windows open simultaneously, sometimes

related, sometimes not (p. 67). This is because those tabs or programs that stay open allow them
to work on all tasks that need to get done. Whether it is working on a class project, checking

email, or looking at Facebook, their laptop is the multitasking center of a youths life (Carrier

et al., 2015, p. 67). As a result of laptops being everywhere, they can have negative effects on

academic performance if not used appropriately. According to Fried (2008), he synthesized that

students who use laptops to socialize with during class are less focused on retaining class

material which leads to a poor performance on exams. This is because their research showed that

an increase use of laptops during class led to a significant decline in a students overall learning

performance within class. Kraushaar and Novak (2010) also looked at the use of laptops in

relation to multitasking activities and found that as social type multitasking activities increased,

the students academic performance significantly decreased. As a result, these students

performed significantly lower than their counterparts who did not use laptops as a distraction.

Text Messaging

The use of text messaging has recently seen an increase in popularity among adolescents

as a primary way of communicating with one another at any given time. Student will often keep

their instant messaging platforms turned on while they complete academic activities (Jones &

Madden, 2002). This activity is more prevalent among those who are also using their laptops to

complete academic activities. By using text messaging, students can receive a message, have

time to collect their thoughts and write a written response when they are able to do so; whether in

the middle of another task or not.

For many adolescents, they believe they can successfully multitask and retain

information just as much as those who are not multitasking. Research that has been conducted

has found that students who study while instant messaging friends might be unable to elaborate

on the material studied and could develop a self-defeating set of study habits based on superficial
processing of the material they are studying (Bowman, Levine, Waite & Gendron, 2009, p.

928). When adolescents are not solely focused on the task in which they need to complete, their

retention of the material deteriorates to a point in which they are only remembering short bursts

of information. Those who are engaged with multiple activities are only retaining superficial

information rather than understanding the critical aspects of the information.

According to Madell and Muncer (2007), they found that participants believed the use of

text messaging would allow them to have better communication skills with their peers no matter

how many tasks they performed at once. However, the research found that while participant

could control what and how they communicated, they had no idea when a reply would occur,

which would often interrupt their academic work. This meant they were continuously focused

not only on their academic work, but when they would receive another text message.

In a study conducted by Bowman et. al. (2009), they took eighty-nine college students

and placed them into three groups. These groups were categorized by text messaging before they

conducted the reading; text messaging during reading; and no text messaging at all. For students

who were selected to text message, they were informed to respond with complete sentences and

structure that was not simplistic. The two groups, who did receive random text messages, had to

respond at various time in random intervals.

The results found that students who were asked to text message before and during the

reading of a passage, took significantly longer to read the passage when they [text messaged]

during reading than when they [text messaged] before reading or did not [text message] at all

(Bowman et al., 2009, p. 930). Similarly, students who received text messages before were

quicker to read the text because they knew they would not receive another text message during

the reading process. The results of this study support multitasking as a way to lower students
abilities to understand and retain academic information when participating in social media

activities.

Text messaging as a form of distraction is also becoming prevalent among adolescents.

Some studies have been done to look at the negative effects that text messaging has on increasing

distractions. One study conducted by Levine, Waite, and Bowman (2012), focused on text

messaging and distractibility through different situations such as driving, walking, and academic

performance. In all of their studies, they found that text messaging significantly lowered reaction

time and overall performance. This is because text messaging while performing another task

creates a switching model of attention (Levine et al., 2012, p. 19). The switching of tasks that

occur means that our brain switches its attention to texting and then switching back to the other

task rather than splitting their attention between both. The findings also supported their research

in that text messaging and distractibility slowed reaction times with a decrease in memory

recognition as well as a lower attention span.

Distractions

In a multitasking society, distraction leads us down several paths that inhibit our ability to

critically analyze and complete low level tasks. According to Jackson, (2008), people are

grafted to our cell phonesinstant-messaging disjointed, pause-button flavor makes it the

perfect multitasking communications medium (p. 74). The reason behind this? Many students

say it is because they can get more done with text messaging, watching television, and playing a

computer game all while working on an academic assignment. However, what this is really doing

is bringing students learning to the surface level. It creates a distraction. A diversion for them.

Rather than putting away their devices and focusing on academics, they believe that multitasking

makes them more efficient with more time for socializing.

 Multitasking on the brain is not as easy as one may believe. While many students believe

they learn jut as efficiently multitasking as they do when focusing on a single task, that is not the

case. According to Jackson (2008), students can train [your brain] until youre blue in the face

and youd never be as good as if you just focused on one thing at a time (pp. 79-80). This is

because our brain requires us to reassess the new task also called task switching then focus

on that new task. When this process is occurring, our brain takes time to changeremember the

rules needed for the next task, and block out cognitive interference from the previous still-vivid

activity (Jackson, 2008, p. 79). Training your brain can help increase your abilities to multitask,

learning efficiently and effectively will still continue to be low. This is why moving away from

multitasking is actually more efficient than not.

Distractions are all around us. They take on many forms. Whether a distraction comes

from an incoming text message, a ding of an email or clicking on another tab in the web browser

to look up something important, those distractions are present. While some may be beneficial in

our ability to learn and multitask, many are just what they appear to be; a distraction. In a net

generation of adolescents that prides itself on being excellent multitaskers, it is not as easy as it

appears. As Levine et al., (2012) found, as the similarity between simultaneously presented

tasks increase, performance decreases (p.21). Adolescents believe they are learning

exponentially by multitasking, but what they are really doing is inhibiting their full learning

potential. Multitasking and distractions go hand in hand because it is easy for one to be involved

in.

Findings

In a society that is constantly multitasking, are adolescents really able to retain

information being taught? In some ways, yes, but for the most part more harm than good is being
done. While multitasking does seem to be efficient to get tasks done, doing so while participating

in academic learning seems to have the opposite effect.

In a study conducted by Courage et al., they found eight findings where multitasking

created a diminished learning environment for students. Some of these findings supported lower

academic retention while completing multiple tasks at one; using social media and text

messaging while studying had a negative effect on students overall grade point average; higher

distractibility among adolescents who used the internet, social media and text messaging as a

way to communicate while studying; and those who were often distracted were only able to

maintain attention to important to-be-tested study material for a brief timebefore switching to

check out another available media (Courage et al., 2005, p. 18). Of these eight instances,

research supported that multitasking has negative effects on learning and student outcomes in

academic learning because our brains cannot easily switch from task to task and retain

information.

When adolescents multitask, they lose valuable information and are only able to learn

what is on the surface. In a multitasking generation that socializes on the internet, through the

use of text messaging laptop use during class time, multitasking is having a negative effect on

their learning. This is why multitasking is more of a detriment to our society than it is a

supplemental tool. While research is continuously occurring on the multitasking generation,

findings so far has found that multitasking does more of a detriment to student learning that

many initially thought to be true.

 References

Adams, J. (2012). Make learning matter for the multitasking generation. Middle School Journal,

43(3), 6-12.

Bowman, L. L., Levine, L. E., Waite, B. M. and Dendron, M. (2010). Can students really

multitask? An experimental study of instant messaging while reading. Computers &

Education, 54, 927-931.

Carrier, L. M., Rosen, D. L., Cheever, N. A., Lim, A. (2015). Causes, effects, and practicalities

of everyday multitasking. Developmental Review, 64-78.

Courage, M. L., Bakhtiar, A., Fitzpatrick, C., Kenny, S., and Brandeau, S. (2015). Growing up

multitasking: The costs and benefits for cognitive development. Developmental

Review,35, 5-41.

Fried, C. B. (2008). In-class laptop use and its effect on student learning. Computers &

Education, 50, 906914.

Jackson, M. (2008). Distracted, the erosion of attention and the coming dark age. Prometheus

Books: New York, NY, 9327.

Jones, S., & Madden, M. (2002). The Internet goes to college: How students are living in the

future with todays technology. Pew Internet and American Life Project.

http://pewinternet.org

Kraushaar, J. M., & Novak, D. C. (2010). Examining the effects of student multitasking with

laptops during the lecture. Journal of Information Systems Education, 21, 241251.

Lenart, A., Madden, M., & Hitlin, P. (2005). Teen and technology: Youth are leading the

transition to a fully wired and mobile nation. Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs?PIP_Teens_Tech_July2005web.pdf

Levine, L., Waite, B., & Bowman, L. (2012). Mobile media use, multitasking and distractibility.

International Journal of Cyber Behavior, 2(3), 15-29.

Madell, D. E., & Muncer, S.J. (2007). Control over social interactions: An important reason for

young peoples use of the Internet and mobile phones for communication? Cyber

Psychology and Behavior, 10(1), 137-140.

Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly. New York, NY. 1-222.