I just finished reading an article in the New York Times (on line of course) “Texting, Surfing, Studying” written by a pediatrician about “her” own children and how they “multitask.” BTW, I cannot tell by the name (or anything in the text) as to whether this is a man or a woman writing – my bias is it’s a woman – so apologies given if necessary.
In any case Dr. Klass shares the story of an “experiment” with her son who is currently a medical student and his friends (also medical students). She asked them about study habits and it turned out most of them indicated that when they studied they were also doing something else (watching a movie, texting, or exercising). Apparently, all of these highly educated and competent medical students could manage to successfully study and do the other task.
Dr. Kass notes in the article about the research showing that there is no such thing as multitasking in human behavior. My own personal and professional experience would back that up. But Dr. Kass appears to be supporting the notion that today’s generation of “digital natives” are perhaps different their forefathers. This notion is in dispute among cognitive neuroscientists, but I would venture to guess there are some stylistic differences at work here.
Rather than quoting research, I thought I would tell you about my stepbrother. Chris is eight years younger than I, but still falls within the “baby boomer” generation. We became brothers when he was 11 and I was 19 and so I only got to observe his studying behavior for a few years. The fact that I was a psychology major helped.
Chris’ technique for studying – which, by the way he did very little of – was to have a book open on his lap while he was watching television. I, on the other hand, have to be in a room with almost complete silence for me to study anything. The only exception is listening to classical music and only such music that has no one singing – no opera!
Now I won’t pontificate and talk about the level of academic achievement that my brother and I attained – suffice it to say there was some variance here. But to this day, he is still much better at remembering things that he has learned by listening and can repeat lines from plays and movies seen years ago with ease. I, on the other hand am one of those people who when I got to a meeting or party and am introduced to new people, cannot remember their names to save my life. And, I can only remember lyrics to songs when I am playing an instrument along while singing.
Both my stepbrother and I are fairly adept at using technology and in other ways are very similar. So I have my doubts about the digital immigrant/digital native notion – sorry Marc Prensky. The only geeky behavior that I eschew is video gaming. For the life of me, I just don’t get it. To be a gamer I think you have to have been born with a GameBoy in you hands.
Check out the NYT article and feel free to comment.
Image from Gideo Burton Creative Commons license.
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