Media multitaskers pay mental price, says Stanford study

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Permalink Reply by Shuchi Grover on September 1, 2009 at 6:04pm

The link I provided includes the youtube video which sums up the conclusions pretty clearly in the researchers' own words. It was at the bottom of the article and perhaps you missed it? The title is also the identical to the one used by Stanford, so no added sensationalism on my account or on the part of the Smartbean article I have linked to.

If we simply went along with your "people are different", then there would be no need for any research of any kind on human behavior, and research centers such as the CHIMe Lab (which conducted this study) should probably be written off as a waste of people's time and money. But naturally there are people who fall out of the "average" ranges. What studies usually indicate are those patterns that emerge for the majority who participate in studies such as this.

Also, as I mentioned, this is not a new topic entirely - it has been discussed on this very forum in the past with a reference to this article from the New Atlantis - http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking, among other views from people on both sides.

You are, of course, entitled to your own views on all of this - no one need foist their convictions on anyone else. I was merely reporting an interesting article - on a new study conducted by researchers who probably rank amongst the best in their field - that I hoped would spark off a lively, civil discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Shuchi Grover on September 1, 2009 at 6:31pm

Thanks for clarifying.

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