Media Multitasking

The Kaiser Family Foundation acknowledges that, “Eight in ten school-age children media multitask” (397). This large number of children and young adults who have reported that they engage in media multitasking, using more than one form of media at once, is alarming because although many people have the idea that media multitasking is productive and time-saving, it actually affects us in our daily lives by endangering our social and mental health. Our culture’s distorted view on media multitasking states that it is beneficial and more efficient than compartmentalizing tasks and completing them separately.
Mental health is a very fragile aspect of humanity and if every time we access some sort of media, we release a waterfall of information
on ourselves then we can soon feel overwhelmed and mentally strained. By trying to complete two, or more, tasks at once we actually exert twice as much energy and get half as much work accomplished. S. Craig Watkins suggests that, “Cutting-edge brain research is beginning to confirm what some say is obvious: doing several things at once actually reduces task efficiency and proficiency. multitasking may not only slow down the completion of tasks but may also impair our performance” (399). Media Multitasking can be compared to attempting to wash two cups at once. If you alternate holding one cup to lather it with dish soap and placing it down to lather the other cup with dish soap then it takes you longer to wash both of them than it would to wash each cup individually. This is the same for when you attempt to rinse them off; if you alternate which cup gets rinsed under the faucet then it takes you twice as long to rinse both as to rinse them one by one. Washing dishes like this would be exhausting and we would find ourselves losing time by trying to condense it. Media multitasking leaves you just as overworked and mentally drained as washing dishes in this situation.
Our social well-being is at risk when we choose to engage in media multitasking.
Media multitasking involves switching from one form of media to another and, usually, back again. As a culture, we are used to being sent lots of small pieces of information and viewing them quickly (Watkins 393). We also tend to indulge in more than one of these small pieces of information simultaneously; this behavior conditions us to learn information in small quick bursts. Negatively, we find difficulty in trying to access and understand information in the real world where it can come in large amounts and we are expected to retain it over an extended period of time. The negative aspects of media multitasking on our social behavior can also be seen in our inability to slow down and to focus on one subject at a time. This is prevalent in our everyday lives, expressed through schooling, work, and relationships. [Enter statistic comparing media multitasking and attentiveness in class.] Media multitasking originated from our society’s desire to be successful and complete different aspects of life as quickly as possible. Our culture has taught us to strive for originality so in this quest we attempt to accomplish as many things as possible because at least one of them has to be an original idea. Most people can identify with experiencing this desire to keep up with our culture’s expectations; Even [Quote from B. a. 1.] Another key contributor is how our society tells us that we are good at media multitasking. A twenty-two year old college student named Justine was quoted saying, “Multitasking is easy and natural for us” (398). Being raised to believe that all of us fit into this box of being good at something, we often try to be good at it even if it doesn’t come naturally for us. For example, when I was between the ages of ten and twelve, I continuously forced myself to listen to music while I worked on school work as well as when a teacher would ask the class if we wanted to listen to
music while taking a test. I did this because the other kids always said how much better it made them work. It didn’t work for me but even as a preteen I had already been alienated into believing that what society said was true. The extra effort I was taking to listen to music at the same time as attempting to complete school work left me exhausted and feeling like an outcast.
To conclude, using a number of different forms of media simultaneously can only harm our mental and social abilities.