Comments on: Digital Natives – Are They Really Skilled at Multitasking?

By: Keren Peters Atkinson

Keren Peters Atkinson — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:13:57 +0000

Does anyone know if any scientific study has been done to assess whether digital natives, as defined by age, are neurologically hard-wired to be better multi-taskers than digital immigrants? A white paper by Enquiro researcher Laura Hanon postulates that digital natives can process different types of digital information at the same time and that digital immigrants can’t. Another paper by Enquiro theorizes that the brain’s super plasticity during the formative years of ages 2-4 and again during puberty allowed for digital natives to adapt neurologically to an environment with technology better than those who experienced those periods of super plasticity before the advent of digital technology…. that the environment affected the neurological development.

However, all scientific studies I’ve seen – such as that cited above – indicate that multi-tasking is an urban myth for all people. But I wonder if anyone has bothered to do look at the ability to multi-task by age group. Can those younger than age 24 (digital natives) multi-task better… or just think they can?

By: Lili

Lili — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 22:10:16 +0000

How awesome is to multi-task

By: Zeph

Zeph — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:45:51 +0000

Pauline – what I hear is that “following your own interests” wins out over focusing consistently on a given task at a time. That’s fairly obviously the case with most voluntary heavy multi-taskers – they are doing what they prefer to do, whether or not they are being as successful as they rationalize it to be. So the first nugget from this research is questioning the rationale and making more explicit the tradeoff between this “personal motivation” and achieving desired actual results. Many might prefer to text and blog on an employer’s time instead of getting work done as well… and have been trained by their experience that this is fun and natural. At question here is the handy rationale that they do it so well the employer is not harmed and so has no legitimate rights to control such behavior.

A deeper question is the degree to which this preference for scattered attention has been trained rather than being inherent; perhaps the rewards of focusing more intensely can be just as attractive to many, if they are raised with enough opportunity to develop that side of themselves (and to let that feel natural). That is, is feeling “natural” the gold standard, or is it sometimes a conditioned reflex which reflects fads.

By: Pauline

Pauline — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 01:05:30 +0000

Is listening to “white noise” to block out other more interesting things around me “multi-tasking”? Listening to music might provide background noise. While actively chatting, texting or watching a film might not really assist me to gain new ideas in the classroom, it might be more interesting to me than what others think I should be doing. Personal intrinsic motivation wins.

By: Bobby

Bobby — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:34:05 +0000

Digital natives have taken to technology like little fish to water. They have no fear of it like the older generation does. Only time will tell whether or not this multitasking talent will make more capable adults. However, the younger generation does not really have a choice.It is either learn to multitask with this technology or be left behind. I personally think they are doing a great job.

By: Guy Macher

Guy Macher — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:03:18 +0000

In 38 years of teaching I have never found a good student who multi-tasked and never found a poor student who didn’t try to multi-task. Ask any. 400 hitter what he thinks about when facing a pitcher and the answer is Nothing, I just watch the ball.
Kids who think they can read and chat with friends are deluded.
Concentrate on the new task at hand. As one becomes more skilled less conscious brain p0wer goes into the performance. After 45 years of driving, I can drive and chat. A beginner can’t do that and be safe.

By: JennaMcWilliams

JennaMcWilliams — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:15:07 +0000

This is an interesting post that points to a key question in the digital media / literacies movement: how do we measure these new proficiencies, and to what extent to the kinds of tests we already have offer the kinds of measurements that are valuable?

I’m not disputing the results of the studies discussed here, but as Cathy Davidson explains in her recent HASTAC post about measurements of writing proficiency (http://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/so-maybe-not-dumbest-generation), there is a set of researchers (incl. Andrea Lunsford) who argue that literacy practices are changing as well as improving. She writes that “we cannot always be comparing apples (those eager new students sitting in our classes) and oranges (our memories of students past).”

I agree, and at the same time I worry about the use of the “digital natives” analogy, which seems too dualistic and to encourage an “us vs. them” mentality arbitrarily divided by age. I’ve written more about this at my own blog at http://jennamcwilliams.blogspot.com/2009/09/weighing-in-on-natives-immigrants.html .

Whew! This was a long response. Proof that this post is rich and worth engaging with, imho.