Technology And Multitask

The Flip Side of Technology In his article “From The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains,” Nicholas Carr argues that the increasing usage of the internet has had a negative impact on the our attention span and the way our brains work. Carr states, “What the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation” (Carr par 5). Carr maintains this idea throughout the article expressing his concerns for how the internet has shortened his attention span and ability to focus.

Media and technology are permeating and changing every part of our lives, but are there consequences to these changes? Nicholas Carr questions if the Internet is helping people as much as it is believed to in his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” With an increased reliance on the Internet, Carr has found patterns of shortened attention in himself and among others. Carr points out frightening changes occurring in human behavior and the workings of the brain that have now become evident in our society’s younger generation and could have devastating consequences.

In “The Multitasking Generation”, Claudia Wallis provides key points on the difference between Generation M and Multitasking. Wallis also challenges the idea that by multitasking, things get done. In the first part of the essay Wallis provides information on a family living in California. A man and a woman with twins, one girl and one boy. Wallis observes that most of the time spent at home by the children is on a computer with music blaring and chatting with friends on their cell phones. Wallis states, “By all standard space-time calculations, the four members of the family occupy the same three-bedroom home in Van Nuys, California…, but psychologically each exists in his or her own little universe.”(385-386) In today’s world, “That level

The argument made by Tony Schwartz in Addicted to Distraction is that technology has limited the attention span of humans, through the constant inflow of new information, and negatively impacts life in various means, from relationships to personal hobbies and activities. More specifically, Schwartz argues that he is no longer able to enjoy reading a book or engage in activities that he was once able to do, like exercising. He writes, “Instead of reading (books), I was spending too many hours online … shopping for more colorful socks … and even guiltily clicking through pictures with irresistible headlines.” In this passage, Schwartz suggests that the internet and digital world provides a drug-like stimulation for the brain’s constant addiction

While Tegu describes his surprise about the power of social media as his ideas on Tweets had such a rapid spread and aroused waves of comments and emotions, Sherry Turtle also introduces the strong power of technology that both changes the way people think of themselves and shapes our ways of being. According to her research, technology shifts us from connection to isolation, and in the future technology may become our only companies that will listen to our words and solve our loneliness. Simultaneously, Roger Kay narrates the increasing power of social media which can change our traditional behavioral patterns and modes of thought in“Multitasking: Good Or Bad?”. He indicates that we are likely to spread attention over different sources

Although progression across the world may have slowed at times, progress has constantly been made in just about every field imaginable. Technology has exploded in recent years, and such developments have meant a lot for the future of communication amongst the human race. Of course, as with nearly every other rapidly expanding medium that leads to drastic changes for the way humans interact, there are analysts following the change. One such analyst is S. Craig Watkins, who wrote an essay titled “Fast Entertainment and Multitasking in an Always-On World” in his book The Young and the Digital (2009). In the essay, which numbers about nine pages, Watkins discusses recent technological advancements and what they mean for society. The article begins

Many people are being distracted these days by the overuse of technology. It has become very difficult for people to focus on one task at a time. Also, people are forgetting some old ways of increasing their intelligence and ways of developing skills. In the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” By Nicholas Carr, he argues that internet restricts the minds from increasing our ability to fully understand what we read online. He also argues that spending “too much” time online causes to lose the focus and train our minds to think more like machines. Also, in the article “Why Gen-Y Johnny Can’t Read Nonverbal Cues” by Mark Bauerlein, he argues that people are less interactive because of the more use of texting and online chatting. He argues that

This article by Nicholas Carr is about the access we have to the Internet nowadays and how it affects our intelligence. It tells us how dependent we are of Internet and how we get affected by the technology around us. It also says how Google is trying to replace our brains, which are not fast enough, with a faster contrived brain. Carr claims that the accessibility to fast information is making us stupid and less focused. “He notes that the Internet is causing people to want fast information, rather than read through a long article.” The availability for fast information is affecting our minds and makes people stressed.

Multitasking is often said by others to be unsatisfactory because it “makes people not understand something to the best extent” and it “makes people fail”. However, multitasking can be done where it won’t affect people. Multitasking can be used in certain situations, like when you are doing homework, when you are studying for a test, and when you are in a rush.

When someone is multitasking they are not doing multiple things at once, they are simply switching tasks at a rapid pace. This puts strain on the brain, which creates mental fog, anxiety, and stress. It also reduces impulse control. With a lowered impulse control, it is easy for social media to hijack our brains with the promise of stimulating our dopamine-powered reward centers. Stress, anxiety, multitasking, and social media are intricately intertwined in our modern world. Research has proven that multitasking is detrimental to our mental health, however, I constantly am switching from one task to another.

What you view as harmless multitasking affects your efficiency because our brains have cognitive limits. According to “How to Do One Thing at a Time” published by Women’s Health Magazine, Clifford Nass, Ph.D., a professor at Stanford University performed an experiment on a group of students. A group of students was asked to spend 30 minutes to compile a playlist, chat, and write a short essay. Another group of students spent 10 minutes focusing on each task individually. After they completed their tasks, they were given a memory test. Professor Nass concluded that single-taskers did significantly better on the memory test than multi-taskers.

You've probably heard the latest studies that multitasking may not be as productive as people once thought it was. According to an article on Entrepreneur, our brains hone in on distractions. The brain grabs our attention because the distraction signals change and change can signal danger.

Stereotyping says females are the queens of multitasking, but are we? As I begun my research on multitasking, I found an array of discoveries made by a wide range of people, from students like myself to average adults to credible professionals. Nothing was constant.

Today, our world seems to move at a million miles an hour. Whether you are a college student studying for three different midterms while facetiming your friends and family, a mom who needs to drop off her son at soccer practice while taking an important conference call, a store manager trying to deal with an unhappy customer while simultaneously restocking shelves, or a high school student trying to write a history paper while hanging out with friends and stretching before basketball practice, “multitasking,” is inevitably becoming part of daily life. Today’s generation actively “multitasks”, whether they realize it or not, it could be argued that this is good or bad.

The concept that we are capable of multitasking is faulty. As human beings we have convinced ourselves otherwise. We often attempt to do many things at once when we are short on time and have much to do. Unfortunately the truth is that this is not optimal for creating or doing anything properly.