Clifford Nass did a study and concluded that people who multitask are extremely susceptible to distracting content and it is very hard for them to switch back and while still concentrating one hundred percent. According to the results it “showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmrntal stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory” this leads to his conclusions stating “heavy media multitaksers performed worse in a test of task-switching ability, likely due to reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task set” (Cliffored Nass, Ophir, and Wagner 1).
I myself completely agree with these statements based on my own experiences with trying to multitask. Trying to read and text, watch T.V and do an assignment (which I am currently doing right now, well actually I am watching Beefest, but back to the blogging), or doing HW and listening to music. It is really hard to do because you cannot give all your concentration to it. For example, whenever I am reading and doing something else I find myself just glazing over the text and not even understanding the concepts I am trying to learn. I find it funny when people tell me that they can constantly multitask various because I ask them about what they are reading about and they can barely recite it back to me. The brain simple cannot focus on two or three different things at once; it eventually just overloads the brain.
My generation and the ones younger than me have this issue of “Always on”. This is the idea of always being connected to some form of tech at all times. This is very true for most people I know, myself included. I am always connected to Facebook and I cannot live without my phone for more than two days or I start to go through withdrawals. It is a sad thing to admit but it is the new truth of this world we all live in. Being connected to technology is critical in this day and age because most jobs require us to be on call and ready to go at all times. But still a lot of people I know really enjoy being locked into technology because it is a lot of fun! Tell me that Candy Crush Saga is not the most addictive game ever created. But that is just how I feel.
With all of this technology and being online at all times we are losing the ability to socialize and speak to people face to face. In my opinion this is the biggest casualty of the technology boom of the past few decades. In the PBS documentary “Digital Nation” there was a part about a kid in Korea who was sent to a rehabilitation center for video games. In the show I noticed that he had a huge lack of basic social skills need in the future. This is not just a problem in Korea though; in the U.S it is such a problem for my generation. In the future this is going to a huge problem especially when they get into the job hunt or it could change how the job searches go in the future; but who really knows.