Back To School In A Wired World

Are Electronic Gadgets Turning Kids Into Multitasking Pros, Or Just Dragging Them Down?

(WebMD)  It's no secret that today's children are growing up in a brave new world of computers, cell phones, video games, and iPods. This year, kids will head back to school with more gadgets than ever before.

"Young people today live media-saturated lives, spending an average of nearly 6 1/2 hours a day with media," according to a 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation study, "Generation M: Media In the Lives of 8-to18-Year-Olds."

And that's not all. Gone are the days when a youngster sat too close to the TV, lost in a favorite show. Nowadays, multiple gadgets may compete for a child's scattered attention.

"Kids are instant-messaging while they're watching MTV and taking cell phone calls and playing a computer game with somebody in Japan," says Kathleen Clarke-Pearson, M.D., a pediatrician and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Communications and Media.

"This is a complete experiment in the history of childhood and in the history of the human brain," says Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., an educational psychologist and author of "Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds — and What We Can Do About It."

Not sure how to help your children cope with all of the distractions and dilemmas that the new technology brings? Here's some expert advice.

Q. My teenager does homework, listens to an iPod, and sends instant messages on the computer, all at the same time. Could this multitasking hinder learning?

Yes, says Russell Poldrack, Ph.D., a University of California, Los Angeles, associate professor of psychology. "When the goal is learning, it's important to focus," he says. "Learning and memory are pretty badly reduced when you're multitasking."

In one of Poldrack's studies, 14 adults (average age 26) had to learn a new task while simultaneously listening to a series of beeps and counting only the high tones. Poldrack discovered that this type of active multitasking impaired the subjects' ability to learn.

In real life, a teen is engaged in active multitasking if he or she sends text messages or talks on a cell phone while reading a textbook.

What's the result? "You sacrifice ability to focus and general performance," Poldrack says. "One of the most fundamental and widespread findings in psychology is that whenever you have to switch back and forth between doing things, you're not as good at them as if you had focused on them. The brain has some pretty fundamental limits in terms of its ability to do multiple things at once."

Compared to active multitasking, does listening to music while studying create the same type of distraction? That's less clear, Poldrack says. "Our work doesn't really show that that passive kind of background noise is necessarily a bad thing. We haven't looked at it."

It depends on the student, Healy says. "With music in the background, you still may be able to focus. Some kids can and some can't."

If a parent is alarmed that a teen is multitasking too much, dictating change usually doesn't work, Healy says. She suggests giving a teen a news article about the hazards of multitasking and asking, "What do you think you might be able to do about this?"

"Get your child thinking about what this means to them and their learning," she says. "Let the kid make the plan. That way, they have ownership over it."

For example, teens might find that their ability to focus improves, as well as grades in school, if they separate homework and active distractions as much as possible. That may mean doing only homework for 45 minutes, then taking a 15-minute break to instant-message friends, make phone calls, or update a MySpace or Facebook page.

Q. My 10-year-old daughter begs for a cell phone because all of her close friends own one. Should I give her one?

Teens who drive may need a cell phone for safety reasons. But cell phones "are not generally recommended for preteens," says Regina Milteer, M.D., a representative of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Council on Communications and Media. Children that young may not be responsible enough to own a cell phone.

"But to be very, very realistic," Milteer says, some preteens may need a cell phone for emergencies — for instance, if they walk alone from school to their home or a parent's office.

[brianbwb-2009]

"Learning and memory are pretty badly reduced when you''re multitasking."

Wrong. To function in modern society, it is vital to learn to multitask, and effectively use the volumes of information available.

The deciding factor is the grades of the student in question, is the student understands the material, and completes the required use of said material, and gets good grades, this is all that is important.

[michellem99-2009]

A wined world
Kids yakking on the cell
Kids listening to mp3
Kids text message
Kids playing a game on computer
Yet in our day
It was the radio
It was the phone
It was written notes
So we had recess
We were kids now all grown up
Times they change.
What will it be like when they grow up
Do we want to know
May be not
Verse by Michelle

[oakishpines]

'' ... the u.s. civil war was a wierd ironiy, a civil war fought to save the slaves of a few folk that invested all their money to be treated to non-charity and all their votes so as to be treated to taxation at gunpoint ... they should have chased through gardens and criticised naked lazy ignorant profane blemished kids to screaming and crying and behaving and danced get well feed world songs and medical you are here map song dance skit kits rallied around the sick beds drifting th e tens millions spore bloome weed dragon trail fikle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail groups ... ''

'' ... eternal story boards swimming in oceans of eternal story boards ... ''

'' ... god is a bunch of three year old girls that give their bombs to men to tax the world and save all the girls ... ''

'' ... there should be tens millions front pages and busses in the world, but only three hundred people to populate them all, just teasing ... there should be only tens millions to populate them, just teasing again ... ''