I am easily distracted by too much technology, so it would be safe to say that our students are too. My students are seemingly able to negotiate Twitter, Facebook, email and texting with ease, but I question whether they are really able to negotiate multiple streams of information—how much information are they paying attention to? If they are switching back and forth between technologies and attempting to focus in class, are they really listening to their teacher or classmates?
Students haven’t always faced such distractive technology—this makes me ponder my own high school experience, and seriously question what I was doing with my time. We did not have cell phones, and only the lucky few had a Walkman (though not allowed in class); so were we actually listening to the teachers? These days the majority of students have access to cell phones, and this technology is in the hands (pockets) of ~90% of my students, and the truth is, this type of technology is a distraction. I recognize that I am not able to pay full attention to someone [speaking to me] if I am attempting to read my email or text messages. Quite a few studies have looked into this fact, and have found that it is actually dangerous to negotiate multiple tasks--this is one of the key reasons that it is prohibited to talk or text on your cell phone while driving.
Recently, I was reading a psychology article about the relationship between multi-tasking and productivity. One study found that it is possible to lose up to 40% of your productivity if you multi-task, because the reality is what you are doing is task-switching, not multi-tasking. People can’t actually do more than one task at a time. When you are constantly switching between tasks it takes more time to get things completed, you make more errors when switching, and if the tasks are complex, then the time and errors increase, and task switching is too taxing on the brain--the research shows that people can attend to only one cognitive task at a time.
Back to the question: Do you think too much technology creates a distraction for students…quite simply, yes. Not that it is the fault of technology—I embrace technology and love what it allows us to accomplish—but it is ironic that although technology allows us to be more efficient and effective, and we are actually less (by 40%) efficient and effective thanks to our use of technology.
Article: Multi-tasking
Students haven’t always faced such distractive technology—this makes me ponder my own high school experience, and seriously question what I was doing with my time. We did not have cell phones, and only the lucky few had a Walkman (though not allowed in class); so were we actually listening to the teachers? These days the majority of students have access to cell phones, and this technology is in the hands (pockets) of ~90% of my students, and the truth is, this type of technology is a distraction. I recognize that I am not able to pay full attention to someone [speaking to me] if I am attempting to read my email or text messages. Quite a few studies have looked into this fact, and have found that it is actually dangerous to negotiate multiple tasks--this is one of the key reasons that it is prohibited to talk or text on your cell phone while driving.
Recently, I was reading a psychology article about the relationship between multi-tasking and productivity. One study found that it is possible to lose up to 40% of your productivity if you multi-task, because the reality is what you are doing is task-switching, not multi-tasking. People can’t actually do more than one task at a time. When you are constantly switching between tasks it takes more time to get things completed, you make more errors when switching, and if the tasks are complex, then the time and errors increase, and task switching is too taxing on the brain--the research shows that people can attend to only one cognitive task at a time.
Back to the question: Do you think too much technology creates a distraction for students…quite simply, yes. Not that it is the fault of technology—I embrace technology and love what it allows us to accomplish—but it is ironic that although technology allows us to be more efficient and effective, and we are actually less (by 40%) efficient and effective thanks to our use of technology.
Article: Multi-tasking