Janet CollinsMulti-Media and Multi-Tasking
August 27th 2009 05:35
If you are one of those multi-media junkies and juggle your emailing, YouTube and social networking such as facebook and twitter with talking on your mobile phone, you are probably not really good at doing any of these things all that well. That’s what a recent study in the United States has found.
In a report in the Proceeedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers at Stamford University published the results of a study that contradicts previous beliefs that the new media has actually sharpened our ability to multi-task.
The study divided heavy media multi-taskers from others and included a series of tests where participants were asked to compare rectangles, first without distractions and then with distractions. Heavy media multi-taskers came off second best producing pretty poor results after being distracted.
This has come as a surprise to the researchers who had initially done the tests to find out why media multi-taskers were much better at multi-tasking than others. Researchers reported that heavy media multi-taskers were regularly distracted from the major task and had difficulty ignoring irrelevant information. However, researchers also found that heavy multi-media users would be likely to be the first ones to notice anything new.
While these researchers have been surprised by the results, it would probably be of little surprise to those who have anything to do with road accidents. Authorities have long warned of the dangers of talking on mobile phones or even texting while driving a vehicle. In Australia at least, for some time now it has been illegal to talk on the phone while driving a motor vehicle and fines are heavy, even though I repeatedly see drivers blatantly talking away on their phones and driving at the same time.
Talking into a hands free phone is still allowed, although authorities see this as enough of a distraction to prohibit P-plate drivers from doing it. Authorities have long believed that talking on a mobile is a serious distraction and imposes great risks for driver and passengers as well as those in other vehicles and so would never have believed, as some of these researchers had, that some people are good at doing a lot of jobs well at the same time.
In the UK a community ad has just recently been released with the aim of stressing the dangers of young people texting while driving a vehicle. The graphic ad "2 die 4" is a shocking reminder of how distractions such as texting can be lethal when driving, which is the whole purpose of it and shows young people in a very serious accident after they have been texting.
Researchers may have done just as well to talk to police, ambulance officers and road rescue workers to see just how much damage a simple distraction in a motor vehicle can cause and that doing lots of things at once will certainly take concentration away from a job that may need real focus. Some of us may be much better than others at multi-tasking but there are some things that, no matter how good we are, need our complete attention.
Sourced: ABC/Reuters
Image credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
| 31 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
