August 28th, 2009
by Virginia Williams
You’ve probably suspected as much, noticing how you feel halfway through a day spent staying on top of social networking, answering calls on your cell phone, downloading music and catching up on your e-mail-all at the same time. “Surely,” you think, “all this multi-tasking, all this technology, can’t be entirely good for me.”
And you’re right, a new study shows. Undertaken by Clifford Nass, of Stanford University, the study proves that our brains can’t handle too much simultaneous information from media sources. Doing multiple tasks with the various forms of electronic media available to us lessens our ability to concentrate and perform other, non-media related chores.
Nass’s study shows that those who over-utilize electronic media find it harder to switch from one task to another and to filter out irrelevant information. These cognitive issues are going to become more prevalent as more and more forms of online interaction are developed, leading me to think, sometimes less is more.
If you’d like to read an article on Nass’s study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, click this link . And the next time you think you’re saving time by checking your e-mails, your voice mails, and trying to have a conversation on Instant Messenger, stop yourself, step back, and focus on one thing at a time. Your brain wil...
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