The students who do it say multitasking makes them feel more productive and less stressed. Researchers aren’t sure what the long-term impact will be because no studies have probed its effect on teenage development. But some fear that the penchant for flitting from task to task could have serious consequences on young people’s ability to focus and develop analytical skills…

Whatever the consequences of multitasking, they’re going to be widespread. A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that when students are sitting in front of their computers “studying,” they’re also doing something else 65 percent of the time…

The current generation of teens “is trying to do lots of multitasking because they think it’s cool and less boring and because they have lots of gadgets that help them be more successful at this,” said David Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan. “The belief is they’re getting good at this and that they’re much better than the older generation at it and that there’s no cost to their efficiency.” …

Researchers say there isn’t any answer yet to whether multitasking helps, hurts or has no effect on teens’ development…

Multitaskers “may not be building the same knowledge that they would be if they were focusing,” Poldrack said. “While multitasking makes them feel like they are being more efficient, research suggests that there’s very little you can do that involves multitasking that you can be as good at when you’re not multitasking.” …

They might be getting goods grades, Meyer said, but there’s a chance they could be getting better grades if they learned to focus on a single task or academic subject at a time.

Source: Washington Post
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