Media Multitasking: How it s Changing You & Your Students. Clifford Nass Stanford University

Transcription

1 Media Multitasking: How it s Changing You & Your Students Clifford Nass Stanford University

2 Digital Media Use Media use is growing in all age groups College students Adults Technologies Corporate policies Culture Tweens Kids Babies!

3 Another Key Player in Encouraging Media Use

4 Why? The Principle of Partial Media Displacement New information product or service appears ii) Steals time from i) Information activities Non-information activities iii)) Can get more done

5 The New Dynamic: Media Multitasking

6 Definition of (Media) Multitasking Exposure to and use of unrelated information content Different psychology of related information content

7 Multitasking is Ubiquitous Average college student uses 3 media simultaneously whenever they are using media High multitaskers: 4 or more media at one time Low multitaskers: 1.8 or less media at one time Tween girls use 2.25 media simultaneously High multitaskers: 3 or more media at one time Low multitaskers: 1.6 or less media at one time Boys are likely higher

8 The New Dynamic New information product or service appears ii) Steals time from i) Information activities Non-information activities INFLECTION POINT Used in parallel with other media activities Horizontalization of media use

9 Focus on Immediate Media Multitasking At-the-moment multitasking impedes performance How could it be any other way? What about chronic multitasking?

10 Maybe We Shouldn t Worry About Chronic Multitasking When it really matters, I don t multitask Multitasking doesn t bother me because I do it so often Young brains are able to multitask

11 Does Chronic Multitasking Affect Cognition?

12 Filtering Are there Cognitive Effects of Chronic Multitasking? Memory management Writing quality Task switching

13 Focusing on the Relevant You will see a group of rectangles twice IGNORE the blue rectangles Remember the red rectangles Say if one of the red rectangles changed orientation

14 200 ms

15 100 ms

16 900 ms

17 2,000 ms

18 Results Low MMs are unaffected by distractors High MMs are negatively affected by distractors The more distractions, the worse they do High MMs allow irrelevant information into memory High and low MMs do not differ in general memory capacity

19 Count the passes Noticing the Irrelevant

20 Results High MMs were more likely to see the gorilla BUT.. Low MMs were more likely to get the number of passes correct No difference in net attention

21 Results Low MMs look where they are supposed to look High MMs are more casual about where they look There is a cost to this Not an attention deficit, but a misallocation

22 Managing Working Memory You will see letters, one by one Respond TARGET if the present letter matches the letter that appeared 3 letters ago Respond NOT TARGET otherwise Must maintain and update

23 X

24 B

25 X

26 C

27 B

28 X

29 Results High MTs do worse and worse as: Letter is seen more frequently They have seen more letters High MTs don t remove things from memory There is a cost to this

30 Writing Quality Participants given 30 minutes to answer the following GRE question: The luxuries and conveniences of contemporary life prevent people from developing into truly strong and independent individuals. Other people are (ostensibly) also writing an essay At pre-determined intervals, relevant/irrelevant items are displayed on the news feed Assessment of essay (Six point rubric) Organization Coherence

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33 Results Irrelevant side information hurts HMMs Much worse essays when content is irrelevant This is the norm for college students! Relevant side information helps HMMs more than LMMs This type of information is rare

34 Task Switching Test of ability to switch back and forth between two tasks You will see a cue ( LETTER or NUMBER ), followed by a letter/number pair (e.g. 2b ) After seeing LETTER, say yes if the letter in the pair is a vowel After seeing NUMBER, say yes if the number is even

35 Task Switching NUMBER

36 Task Switching 4b

37 Task Switching LETTER

38 Task Switching 6c

39 Task Switching LETTER

40 Task Switching e9

41 Task Switching NUMBER

42 Task Switching 8p

43 Results HMMs are much slower in switching HMMs can t help thinking about the task they re NOT doing HMMs are bad at multitasking Summary

44 Why Do High Multitaskers Exhibit Deficits?

45 fmri Results for Task Switch

46 Summarizing the Cognitive World of High Multitaskers Poor executive functions Can t focus where they are supposed to focus Can t ignore irrelevant information Can t manage working memory well Can t multitask well (although they do it all the time) Models of learning assume strong executive functions 50 minute classes Online learning

47 Summary There is no expedient to which high multitaskers will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking (paraphrase of Sir Joshua Reynolds: )

48 What About Multitasking, Heavy Media Use, and Emotion?

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52 Link between Multitasking and Emotion Emotional skills require attention and practice Emotions are learned through attending to others It s hard to learn when you re not focused or looking elsewhere Emotion atrophy : the more you have to respond rapidly to people s emotions, the better you become at: Emotion detection Emotion response Emotion regulation

53 Method Survey of 3,400+ girls aged 8-12 Online questionnaire Media use, multitasking, and FtF use Social and emotional development indices

54 Results Multitasking is problematic for tweens Less feelings of normalcy Less sleep More friends who are bad influences Less positive feelings from offline friends Online media use is problematic for tweens Same effects

55 Results Face-to-face interaction is great for tweens Greater feelings of normalcy Greater social success More sleep Less friends who are bad influences More positive feelings from offline friends Prevents the negative effects of online

56 Other Results Facebook is the happiest place on earth Positive comments are liked more Photos are almost all happy faces Positive comments are dominant; negative comments are hedged Growth of parallel play

57 Is There Any Hope?

58 Managing Cognitive Issues Use the 20 minute rule Even for ! Change policies that encourage multitasking Change culture of responsiveness Ban laptops in meetings Strengthen executive functions

59 Managing Socio-Emotional Issues Make face-to-face sacred (it s magical!) Train students and new employees in basic social rules