New Media Concerning Multi-tasking

Today's Youth is like that of no other generation before it.  In today's society our youth never lives a dull moment and multi-taking is just becoming another part of our everyday hectic lives.  With all the new gadgets and technologies arising in todays new media its making them feel like they constantly have to be doing something every second of the day.  

Many people believe that multi-taking is a good thing and it helps the brain be able to function quicker by doing an assortment of so many things continuously.  Personally my view on multi-taking is that is making it very difficult for our youth to stay focused on one thing for any significant amount of time.  For instance the people in college and high school have the ability to do twenty different things during class of which is not paying attention to the lecture at hand.  With an assortment from cell phones, I-Pads, to PSP's and computers our youth is able to acquire all of these gadgets while in class.  Our youth is multi-tasking so much today its making it impossible for kids to focus in on one thing for a long period of time because their brain is so used to having to handle so many things at once, then when it comes down to them having to study for a big exam they have to study while IMing friends, listening to music checking there Facebook, just doing twenty other things while attempting to study.

An article from Times Magazine gives an example of how kids multi-task with todays new technologies, ""I usually finish my homework at school," he explains to a visitor, "but if not, I pop a book open on my lap in my room, and while the computer is loading, I'll do a problem or write a sentence. Then, while mail is loading, I do more. I get it done a little bit at a time." (Bylund,Time Magazine)  This article also talks about how energy drinks feed off of the new media that arises today.  With more and more new media coming out it makes people feel the need and have the ability to constantly be doing something, so energy drinks make it so kids can stay up for longer periods of time enabling them to multi-task longer and with more things. 

All these forms of new media is really effecting todays youth and their studies.  It is making kids procrastinate more and more, while coming to class sleep deprived with no interest of the topics at hand they are learning in class because they can just go on their phone or Facebook when board.  When a person is multi-tasking it takes away from the amount of information they can acquire.  When you focus on many things you are unable to obtain a sufficient amount of information rather then if you were focusing on one thing.

Below is a link to a chart of how multi-tasking is slit up in our youth.

http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/7592.pdf