Sarah Sparks
In an article written by Sarah Sparks, Studies on Multitasking Highlight Value of Self-Control, she says that there is a large temptation to multitask and we need the ability to control it. Based on research explained in the article, on average, teenagers use around 6 different multi-media sites outside of school simultaneously. The brain can't be two places at once, yet we so desperately try to make it so it can. More research shows that it takes longer to multitask than it would just to do things one at a time, because attention isn’t being given to one thing and it is causing the brain to work even harder than it should. Students can never put their phones down. According to studies, students that stop studying or testing to answer texts will score up to a whole grade letter lower. When a student is studying and stop to answer and read a text or notification, the brain switches to focus on that one thing. Then, when the attention is put back to studying the brain has to work twice as hard and remember what it was that was actually being read. Researches put self-control to the test with the “marshmallow test”, where they put preschoolers in a room with a marshmallow in front of them and told them not to eat it. If they waiting for 15 minutes they would be granted another marshmallow, but over 75% of them couldn't resist the marshmallow for that long. The test concluded that the kids who waited for their second marshmallow pay closer attention and scored higher on their tests. Similar results came around with the teens who couldn't control not answering their texts while test taking. So, most people don’t actually multitask, they just want to be. Because, people aren’t actually concentrating on two things at the same time, they are just switching their brain from one to the other.
Work Cited
Sparks, Sarah. "Studies on Multitasking Highlight Value of Self-Control." Education Week. 15 May 2012. Web. 24 March. 2015. <http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/16/31multitasking_ep.h31.html?tkn=PTWFGpBwR5o7bKrnCvQZswL8Vr+lUoJB+62c&cmp=clp-edweek>.