Multitasking’s Role In The Learning Of Young Students

In this modern time in history, multitasking as many tasks as possible within a set time frame has become a necessary trait to be more efficient. Through the influence of technology, many believe multitasking is enhancing valuable skills that help with effective learning. However, in reality, multitasking is destructive to young students. Multitasking dilutes a person’s focus whilst trying to complete tasks simultaneously. This results in lower quality and greater time taken to complete all the tasks, making multitasking inefficient. In addition, this dilution of focus is causing students to lack attention to schoolwork. While multitasking can have its positives, schools should not encourage multitasking as a method of producing effective workers, due to the inability for one to multitask naturally, the prevention of efficiency and performance, the lack of attention and the negative health effects it has to learning.

Technology is increasing the popularity of multitasking making it seem natural. This does not always mean multitasking is an advantageous skill. Multitasking has caused many young learners to get easily distracted and resulted in the failure to understand the concepts and processes of the finished task. According to Just et al., and Klingberg & Roland, it was found that the brain of participants who were engaged in multiple tasks had significantly lower activation energy compared to the sum of the activation areas when each of the tasks were performed independently (as cited in Foehr & Henry, 2006). This lower activation has caused many students learning to become disrupted and unable to complete tasks to good standards. After all, the spread of multitasking cannot be controlled if the media itself is not willing to. Through the use of technology, media has made multitasking acceptable and normal as nothing has been done to prevent it, only to encourage it. It was found in an index that, those who used media to multitask along established cognitive control dimensions, showed that, heavy media multitaskers were more influenced to distractions from unnecessary environmental stimuli and irrelevant representations in memory (Ophir, Nass, Wagner, & Posner). This relates to school students who are multitasking, as it is causing them to become even more ineffective. Furthermore, it can be concluded that people especially school students cannot multitask in general as It is not effective and can causes greater distractions. Through multitasking, efficiency and performance are both sacrificed within school learning.

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Multitasking is lowering efficiency and performance within school learning. Schools acquire better efficiency and performance in their tasks to make learning more enjoyable. But this method has its flaws as students who follow this either end up not finishing tasks or finish to an unacceptable level. According to a study conducted on school studenst, those who multitasked constantly outside of school by watching television, playing with friends and other activities, were reported to not finish homework 77% of the time, whereas those students who were alone with no distractions performed 65% (Kackar, Shumow, Schmidt, & Grzetich). This represent how the efficiency has decreased when multitasking, as time learning is wasted. Young learners who multitask distribute their focus from unfinished work to concentrate on other work without even realising it. The information required for the task that they have been working initially will most likely have been forgotten causing them failure in learning. Students with laptops opened during a lecture who were involved in browsing, search, and/or social computing suffered documents on traditional measures of memory for the lecture content (Hembrooke & Gay 2003).

According to Hembrooks’s and Gay’s (2003, p.4) study, “limitations in the amount of information that can either be selectively attended to, processed, or encoded such that there no longer exist enough overlap at the time of retrieval for the subject to recognize or recall the to-be-remembered information”. This causes lower performance in assigned tasks. Furthermore, it can be concluded that school students cannot multitask as it not effective as it causes lower efficiency and lower performance when doing tasks. Multitasking causes students forgetting all the information gained as useless or combining all knowledge, both unnecessary and essential.

The combined knowledge of various tasks has caused a lower attention span for young learners to get distracted. In a study performed on students, it was found that students who didn’t multitask, were striving for meaning and understanding as they became more interested in the meaning within the academic task, whereas the surface users who were instrumental, reproductive and minimalistic saw tasks as a demand that had to be met, and focused mainly on the time taken (Yılmaz & Orhan, 2010). It is foreseeable that tasks that require greater understanding and fluency take more time and progress compared to those who didn’t multitask. This causes students who multitask to lose valuable time, which in return is causing them to lack attention within one task, as multitasking makes them want to finish faster. More importantly, work is not getting finished to the full standard as students rush through work whilst multitasking causing them to be ineffective. According to Galagan (2010), the result of this has cost teachers to give no marks to those who use technology in class, as one claims, 'I think their response is too regulatory, but obviously, the classroom is becoming more of an open marketplace and less of a sanctuary'. Therefore, those who try and finish multiple assignments or tasks generate more work for themselves resulting in a lower attention span as it not effective. Multitasking causes health problems that occur when the habits are reoccurring within classes.

Multitasking causes many negative health problems to school students from day to day. Multitasking causes a student’s mood to change from doing tasks completing not attempting tasks. One study found that multi-tasking using for students has a greater health risk. According to (Yahoo! & Carat Interactive, 2003, p11. (4)):

“Multitasking (using various media simultaneously) is the Millennial’s specialty, and the growth in the amount of media being used by young people is largely explained by their multitasking behaviour. The ‘Net plays a central role in their multitasking, acting as the “hub” media (sic) that they focus upon most.” (Foehr, & Henry, p. 11)

Dominant health risks that is the stress created by multitasking continuously which leads to health problems such as anxiety and mental exhaustion. Multitasking may be acceptable if done occasionally; however, at the amount and intensity that most multitasking takes place is making multitasking a serious health concern for students. Multitasking should not be allowed at schools due to the negative health risks it has on students.

Multitasking is a distraction to school students and does not produce effective young learners. It causes students to change their attention towards something and gives them freedom. However, this freedom in fact is not free, as it cost students to not understand or fully complete a task costsing more time, efficiency and performance. It causes student to lack concentration as they get distracted from other tasks. It causes both stress and anxiety whilst completing tasks. Multitasking is not helpful in any way other than giving students short term pleasure. Multitasking is a bad habit that should not be influenced by schools through technology as it causes students to become in effective in their learning,

Reference List

1. Foehr, U. G., & Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. (2006). Media multitasking among american youth: Prevalence, predictors and pairings. ().Henry J.
2. Galagan, P. (2010). Burp, chatter, tweet: New sounds in the classroom. T and D, 64(7), 26-29.
3. Hembrooke, H., & Gay, G. (2003). The laptop and the lecture: The effects of multitasking in learning environments. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 15(1), 46-64. doi:10.1007/BF02940852
4. Kackar, H. Z., Shumow, L., Schmidt, J. A., & Grzetich, J. (2011). Age and gender differences in adolescents' homework experiences. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 32(2), 70-77. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2010.12.005
5. Ophir, E., Nass, C., Wagner, A. D., & Posner, M. I. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(37), 15583-15587. doi:10.1073/pnas.0903620106
6. Yılmaz, M. B., & Orhan, F. (2010). The use of internet by high school students for educational purposes in respect to their learning approaches. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 2143-2150. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.296