Sarah D. Sparks article, "Studies on Multitasking Highlight Value of Self Control",  is about the

 

affect of multitasking. The artlicle shows  that individuals from the ages of thirteen to eighteen

 

years of age use as many as six types of media "simultaneously" when they are outside of

 

school. Crazy, right? Although the article does not give specific examples about how these

 

individuals use al of these types of media at the same time, it does give examples and results of

 

tests that have been done. ( The pervasiveness of technology and social media, coupled with a

 

fear of missing out on something important, has led students to pay "continuous partial

 

attention" to everything...) The tendency " to pay continuous partial attention " to everything

 

resulted in individuals having a hard time being able to concentrate on anything. According to

 

researchers citied in the article, the brain can not be in two places at one time. Since your brain

 

is not capable of being in two places at the same time, it takes longer to multitask thatn it would

 

take to do two tasks one after the other. When you multitask it requires the individual to make a

 

choice. Making a choice affects multitasking because it delays the second task. People who

 

multitask are more easily distracted and actually perform worse  on memory and attention

 

tests. When testers have to answer text messages and emails while reading a textbook it

 

requires the tester to refocus in order to read the text or email, and then refocus again in order

 

to find where they were reading in the textbook. Any form of multitasking slows down the

 

performance of the individual.

 

 

    In my opinion I do not think that people are truly multitaskers. I think that they just have a lot

 

to do and do a little bit of each task at a time. I also do not think people should be taught how to

 

multitask. In the article, research shows that people who "multitask" perform slower. It takes

 

longer for someone to try to multitask than it does to just do each task individually and back to

 

back. I do think that multitasking plays a trick on the mind. It makes you think that just because

 

you are doing more " at the same time"  that it is getting done faster, when in reality its just

 

taking longer to finish each task.