Multitasking: Summary

Introducting

Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson observes that there has been a complete shift in the way that the new batch of students in her class has been behaving; many students are zoning out, very few are able to complete tasks and many others are not concerned about course details and would find it more attractive just to skim the details. In the following discussion, Simpson explores the distraction that the Internet causes on the new batch of students.

Discussion

Having been born in the era of the Internet, the new generation has been mentally designed to afford an attention span of only about 1 minute and 45 seconds. These students spend their time absorbed by cell phones, text messaging, social websites, chatting and ipods among others. The professor calls this state as being too connected to the technological ether. This multitasking is significantly costing to the new generation because it has negative implications on their reasoning, learning, creativity and socialization. Research has demonstrated that multitasking or toggling as it is the case here has led to shallowing of depth of thought and quality of output. This toggling has also led to increased procrastination among students whereby they would rather shelve class work only to throw a paper at the last minute - needless to say that the paper will lack quality and will just be a scratch of the surface. As a result of this constant multitasking, students are constantly stressed up as technology has become the order of the day.

Conclusion

To help students be capable of focusing on tasks, Simpson results to yoga as a means of helping the students to concentrate. Yoga would clear their minds and make it alive thereby helping the students not to feel stressed up all the time. Since technology is here to stay, rather than fight it, yoga classes would help the students multitask in a healthy way as well as offer them a way of unclogging the system periodically to help in their concentrations.