Multi-Tasking
The following is a paragraph I am including as boilerplate in this week’s progress reports on my tenth-grade English class. Except for the part about caffeine, the facts come from the students:
____________________________
General Note to Parents:
It has come to my attention that many of my students engage in what is euphemistically called “multi-tasking” while doing homework. At the same time that they are supposed to be understanding their reading or solving grammar problems or writing an essay (to say nothing of their math, science, history, and foreign language studies), they are also doing one or more of the following: visiting “My Space” on the computer, communicating by Instant Messenger (IM), listening to what is (often euphemistically) called “music” on an iPod, watching TV or a video, talking on the telephone, playing a video game, and perhaps also drinking a caffeine-laced drink. Some students have confessed to doing four or even five of these at a time. Such combinations cannot but lead to difficulties in concentration and stunted intellectual growth. I would like to suggest that, depending on your own student’s particular situation, perhaps a conversation on the subject and, if necessary, some increased adult supervision might be in order.
___________________________
I don’t know what the parents will say when they read this. Many of my students are going to be up in arms. “We’re perfectly good at multi-tasking, we’re doing fine in school,” they will say, “and who are you adults to tell use how we study best?”
Well, I’ll tell you who we are (that is, if we are really behaving like adults). We are people who, as we grow older and more dependent on you, don’t want to have to live in a world in which the people running the world can’t concentrate on what they’re doing.
Furthermore, some of us know better than you do about what “doing fine in school” really means. We know from experience that it’s not just about good grades and decent progress reports. It’s about growing from the kind of person who keeps counting how many pages you have left to read into the kind of person who forgets everything else in the world but what is happening in a good book. And how can you lose yourself in a good book when raging words screamed to a primitivistic beat (or syrupy words whispered to a sentimental drone) are being piped into your head and when every ten or twenty seconds you feel compelled to respond to an IM of imbecile banality hurriedly composed by someone paying equally minimal attention to your banal IM?
Do IM. Fine. But do only it—for as long as it takes to complete a conversation. Then turn it off and listen to your infernal song if you have to. Then turn it off and win points in the video game. Then turn it off and read the good book your English teacher has assigned you.
Of course the book will seem boring at first because it isn’t screaming in your ear and flash-dancing in front of your eyes. But somewhere inside you there is a soul that needs nourishing, and it won’t be satisfied with what multi-tasking can feed it any more than your body can be satisfied by eating candy-bar wrappers and soft drink ads.
How do I know this? Because I’ve done both. I’ve multi-tasked and I’ve read good books. Reading good books is better.
____________________________
General Note to Parents:
It has come to my attention that many of my students engage in what is euphemistically called “multi-tasking” while doing homework. At the same time that they are supposed to be understanding their reading or solving grammar problems or writing an essay (to say nothing of their math, science, history, and foreign language studies), they are also doing one or more of the following: visiting “My Space” on the computer, communicating by Instant Messenger (IM), listening to what is (often euphemistically) called “music” on an iPod, watching TV or a video, talking on the telephone, playing a video game, and perhaps also drinking a caffeine-laced drink. Some students have confessed to doing four or even five of these at a time. Such combinations cannot but lead to difficulties in concentration and stunted intellectual growth. I would like to suggest that, depending on your own student’s particular situation, perhaps a conversation on the subject and, if necessary, some increased adult supervision might be in order.
___________________________
I don’t know what the parents will say when they read this. Many of my students are going to be up in arms. “We’re perfectly good at multi-tasking, we’re doing fine in school,” they will say, “and who are you adults to tell use how we study best?”
Well, I’ll tell you who we are (that is, if we are really behaving like adults). We are people who, as we grow older and more dependent on you, don’t want to have to live in a world in which the people running the world can’t concentrate on what they’re doing.
Furthermore, some of us know better than you do about what “doing fine in school” really means. We know from experience that it’s not just about good grades and decent progress reports. It’s about growing from the kind of person who keeps counting how many pages you have left to read into the kind of person who forgets everything else in the world but what is happening in a good book. And how can you lose yourself in a good book when raging words screamed to a primitivistic beat (or syrupy words whispered to a sentimental drone) are being piped into your head and when every ten or twenty seconds you feel compelled to respond to an IM of imbecile banality hurriedly composed by someone paying equally minimal attention to your banal IM?
Do IM. Fine. But do only it—for as long as it takes to complete a conversation. Then turn it off and listen to your infernal song if you have to. Then turn it off and win points in the video game. Then turn it off and read the good book your English teacher has assigned you.
Of course the book will seem boring at first because it isn’t screaming in your ear and flash-dancing in front of your eyes. But somewhere inside you there is a soul that needs nourishing, and it won’t be satisfied with what multi-tasking can feed it any more than your body can be satisfied by eating candy-bar wrappers and soft drink ads.
How do I know this? Because I’ve done both. I’ve multi-tasked and I’ve read good books. Reading good books is better.
posted by G.Rap | 8:53 PM
32 Comments:
raplog? or rantlog? You decide.
I'll have you know I was reading your website, chewing gum, and writing my college essays at the same time.
Night Dr. Rap!
Well the defense I have always used is not that I am good at multi-tasking, but that all of this is part of my general self. I stay in communication with my friends at night, and well, that's fun. I'm a more social person, and have actually made friends this way. I'm friends with Cornelia Gordon now because I played WoW, which is nice. And I do call my music music, euphamistically or not. Rap is horrible (not you Dr. Rap!). I like the real music.
You're basically right. I'd just like to make myself think that I'm doing an ok job. Who knows? I guess the person living the life should at least get some vote.
I've decided that evan and I should reply to all of these from now on! :)
IM is soooo important! How else do I know who likes whom? Gossip>all ;)
Night Dr. Rap!
I'm was reading your blog on my laptop while watching muted TV and chatting on my Bluetooth headset. My favorite time to use said headset is when talking to someone intolerable while doing dishes. I don't quite understand IM, unless the person you're talking to lives somewhere without phones. Last night, however, I was in an undergrad household, and two people had PowerBooks and iPods and were IMing and talking verbally to each other while I was there. It was kinda like talking to people who had bad antennae. Anyway, I've been tainted; while writing to music can be good, especially when what you're writing gets louder in your own head than the music, my touch-and-go blog isn't a book. I've fried my Homeric line-finding ability.
Having read the three comments above, I think that I may rest my case.
It seems to me that you find yourself growing increasingly distanced from the culture of today's youth. I won't deny that a lot of music today is trash or whatever you'll have it called, but I find that your generalizations lessen the overall quality of your argument. While your generation sees "multitasking" with fear, this fear generally stems from ignorance and misunderstanding. A good book is without doubt, a work of art, but so is the hashing sort algorithms developed by software engineers that allow you to search the internet every day. So is the foundation of this web portal you are using to post your own opinions for your students to see. And the latter two examples were likely produced while multitasking. I am an experienced programmer and you are a high school English teacher, so it is understandable that our views of art are somewhat divergent, but just as I recognize the merits of sitting down to read a good book, it wouldn't hurt for you to recognize the kind of progress that can be made while multitasking.
I kind of forgot about anonymous's argument. It's not true for most people probably, but some of my best writing comes when I'm distracted. The goodness of my writing is almost entirely dependent on my mood, and it takes me at least 30 minutes of distraction to get me into that mood. Everyone has their styles. Scratching notes for one-line jokes in stories, or sitting at my computer about to type out a flurry of humor, distractions may actually be beneficial. It could just be personal, but who knows?
It would be silly to argue that one can do better work while concentrating on something other than the work. Certainly when all sources are concentrated on one topic, things are accomplished much expediently.
This is not to say that multitasking causes things not to be finished. I guess if you're saying that it is possible for work to be accomplished while multitasking, then I agree. I can write an essay, chew gum, talk on aim, and listen to music all at the same time, but that will slow down the process of finishing my essay. However, if stick to my primary task (writing the essay, of course) then I will finish my essay in a considerably less amount of time.
I can also assure you, oh anonymous one, that the NASA scientists who were calculating how to get Apollo 1 off the ground were not chewing gum at the same time. I can assure you that no surgeon is eating his dinner as he removes a ruptured appendix. I doubt the creators of the Bayesian search engine were doing much else than meticulously masterminding such a magnificent program. If they were, they would have done it faster if they hadn't been expending themselves elsewhere simultaneously.
I really don't understand at all how Dr. Rap's "fear generally stems from ignorance and misunderstanding." I don't really understand how Dr. Rap is ignorant of a problem that he personally suffered. Moreover, I really don’t understand how Dr. Rap ever said anything against the art behind engineering in this update. Actually I'm not sure he ever used the word art.
I think you've missed Dr. Rap's point. He's not saying that it is not possible for things to be accomplished while multitasking. He is saying that when one multitasks they are expending themselves unnecessarily to things other than the task at hand. This leads to "stunted intellectual growth." I'd argue more specifically this is not only because the student doesn't absorb information as well when concentrating on other things, but also because by wasting all the time distracted by other things, a student loses time he or she could have been using to learn something else. It simply isn't time efficient.
Multi-tasking is harmless enough if productivity doesn't matter. When relaxing at the end of a day, for example, I don't think watching TV and reading a magazine is any worse than just watching TV.
When productivity does matter, however, distractions are demonstrably -- quantifiably -- unhelpful; and I've got the self-gathered statistical data to prove it (at least in my own case). I play about 5,000 hands of online poker a month, and I keep records of every hand, every session. (Or rather, PokerTracker keeps records for me.) My results are better, and the effect is statistically significant, when I am not multi-tasking.
That distractions are as unhelpful to solving math problems or to writing essays as they are to playing poker should not be controversial.
Please Dr. Rapp, it's "kills" not "points" as you so aptly described it. Phst, grow young man.
I think a bigger problem is that society is evolving into a multitasking society. Cell phones are glued to everyone's ear (not only the youth). You can hardly drive down the street without spotting someone else in a car on their Bluetooth or cell phone. Kids, with their growing activities, are doing homework in the car before play practice, memorizing spelling lists at dinner, and yes - writing essays while instant messaging.
Personally I know I have a few ingrained habits that I can't do without (I have to have music - real music, no "rap" - to go to sleep). Yes, I often listen to music while I read (or work) but then I also forget about it altogether as I am drawn into my book or task completely.
From personal multitasking experience I can agree with the fact that it definetly lowers the productivity rate, but that doesn't mean that I don't like to indulge in it now and then.
Thanks to Evander for the defense against the false accusations. "Distanced from the culture of today's youth" implies that to be close to it is automatically to approve of it. The truth is I'm close to it every day, whether I know it or not, because I'm close to my students every day. And while I certainly don't claim to be an expert on all that is influencing them, I can tell an elephant in the room when I see one.
Don't brush your teeth and pee at the same time. If you do, you will have rotten teeth and a dirty bathroom. When you have to pee, pee. When you have to brush your teeth, brush your teeth. I rest my case. Bravo once more to Gideon for hitting the nail on the head. I've been preaching the same thing for years to my students.
It's not like our culture fosters the concentrate on only one thing at a time practice. Take the rapid and mass production of ipods. Youth can't turn the corner without being presented with another new thing to help them multitask even easier.
Another side effect is that this multitasking fad teaches kids to be impatient with their surroundings. They always have to be doing something, keep their mind scattered on more than one thing. They don't have the willpower to sit through the first page of Charles Dickens or even for a webpage to download.
To add a psychological perspective to this discussion on multitasking, I think it is important to realize that in addition to marginalizing whatever tasks you are doing at once, there is an empirically tested drawback to performing more than one activity at once. It stems from the fact that everyone -- across all generations, worldviews, and opinions -- has a short term memory with limited capacity. This is the memory that you use throughout the day when you are performing any number of activities (at once or individually), and need to keep something in mind while doing it. Basically, all activities require a component of this type.
The most famous research on this topic came from George Miller in 1956, who published a paper entitled "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information." The actual paper is somewhat dense, but can be found online at http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller/. The gist of the paper is that human beings can hold seven, plus or minus two, items in their working (short term) memory at one time, and be able to accurately remember them all (in order if necessary). These items can be individual digits, or grouped digits, provided they are grouped sufficiently to become one coherent unit in our minds/memory. As examples of this, we are generally able to remember phone numbers (through rehearsal in our heads) long enough to not have to write them down when we look them up in the yellow pages. If the area code is not our own, we now have 10 digits to remember, but often, we lump the area code into one unit, and then remember the remaining seven digits of the number.
To bring this back to multitasking, in addition to a limited short-term memory with regard to information processing, we also have a limited capacity for performing different sorts of tasks at once. Everything we do adds to our "cognitive load," that is, the amount of information in whatever form (be it informational or procedural) that we can keep track of at once. For a myriad studies on this topic, go to PubMed (a search engine: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) and search for cognitive load and performance, or multitasking. You will find that as more activities are added to someone's cognitive load, either performance on all tasks involved decreases as a function of time or accuracy, or the person ceases to actually multitask and performs a bit of one action, then a bit of another, back and forth -- again leading to a decrease in performance by either time or accuracy.
A recent example of this came from Sodhi and Cohen at the University of Rhode Island, who found that the big fuss about cell phones should not be that people's hands are preoccupied, but that their minds are. Drivers' alertness was decreased even when using hands-free sets, or doing a different cognitive task like remembering a list of numbers, or performing calculations: http://advance.uri.edu/pacer/september2002/story2.htm. Granted, chewing gum will not result in a massive decline in performance on other tasks (though it would depend on the nature of the other tasks -- tasks of the same type tend to affect each other more: motor versus non-motor), but everything will have some effect, especially when five or six tasks are taken in combination.
So the lesson from the psychological literature is: your brains will work harder and better for you if you only do one thing at a time.
Just out of curiosity, Gideon, were you ever in the military? Were you perhaps in Vietnam?
I tried multitasking when I got here. Needless to say, it didn't work-not least of all because the stuff I'm reading is hard enough to understand on a surface level, let alone anything deeper while also trying to listen to music and talk on IM. You just can't grasp 16th century literature with divided attention. I think much of my urge to multitask isn't just being scatterbrained or addicted to IM though-I feel also like if I'm not doing something at every minute, I'm missing an opportunity-like waiting for a web page to load, I could read that extra sonnet, or, when I'm biking somewhere, I obsess over the fact that I could be writing 2 paragraphs of an essay. It's been hard to learn that sometimes, even in our ridiculously fast-paced world, things just take time.I think we often forget that now with the constant pressure to do, know, and see everything; we are so absorbed with being well-rounded that we don't actually end up doing any of those things truly "well"-a generation of terminal dabblers.
I find that sometimes my inspiration comes while multitasking, but 'better work' does not come while you are distracted. I have written two college essays, and the topic for the better-of-the-two came to me, not while brainstorming specifically for college essays, but while staying up late and night playing video games. I was about to go to bed when the idea hit me, so i stayed up for another 30 minutes hashing out a rough copy of my ideas. I did not, however, continue to play video games while writing my rough draft. The only multitasking that i let myself do is listening to music while thinking. Other distractions that you mentioned are a tad extreme, at least in the context of my experiences. I might, for example, write half of my essay, take a break by playing video games and watching tv, and then finish the essay, but i don't even see how it is possible to do both at the same time. That being said, i do know that I am inclined to multitask. When we had the mandatory enrichment on meditation, wherein we were instructed to count backwords from 20 in multiples of two, I was able to think about many topics and still maintain my count (which frustrated me to no end, as we were supposed to be only focusing on the counting part). I have also found that I am able to tune out background noise when I need to think, a skill that not everyone posseses. Is it really multitasking when such things happen?
Thanks to Jonathan for those links.
I have no idea why Anon. is asking about Vietnam. I have not been in the military. But I have come to admire very deeply some, and honor all, who are.
As for Alex M.'s question, it is perfectly true that inspiration often hits when the mind is occupied elsewhere. And I tell my students regularly that we have to think about something and then forget it until the next day because in sleep the imagination is still somehow working and ideas are seen in a different light the next day. "Sleep on it" is good advice. But inspiration is not labor, and to craft an inspiration into communicable form requires focused attention.
Tuning out background noise is a great gift. I would not call that multitasking. Thinking a million thoughts while trying to meditate is also not multitasking. It is a sign of (very normal) lack of practice at concentration. Habitual multitasking would obviously make that meditative concentration the more challenging.
"Multitasking" is a word I don't like, by the way. It was coined to justify the concept with the aura of efficiency. More apt is T.S. Eliot's phrase, "distracted from distraction by distraction."
I agree that when I need to focus or do something that requires a lot of brain power, like writing an essay or reading a good book, I cannot multitask. But it depends on the level of brian power required. For example, I would rutinely do my spanish homework with music or online distractions because the repetition of the exercise did not require as much brain power.
However, for things that do require concentration, like listening to a lecture, I find it helps me to do small tasks that don't require real brain power, like doodling. This is especially true of activities that require concentration but no physical movement. The small activity lets out a little extra energy and gives my brain enough to do that it stays active and focusing. If I'm forced to do nothing but listen, sometimes I get bored and my ability to listen and think about what is said actually deteriorates. I think this sort of response happens especially for people who have ADD or ADHD. My mom, who has extensive training in helping people with ADD and ADHD stay organized, has co-written a book called "Fidget to Focus" about why doing some small extra activity, like doodling or chewing gum can help some people focus - I would recomend it if you are interested in reading more about this.
So I think for multi-tasking, it depends on the activities you are trying to do. Doing high concentration activities with activities that require almost no brain power can have a positive affect on what your trying to focus on. And if I don't have to focus on one thing, I don't think its a problem to be doing four different activities, like IMing, doing a crossword, listening to music and folding laundry.
Allow me to begin by quoting Paul Simon. "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all." Being sixteen, or seventeen, or eighteen, is damned confusing. Influences come from all directions, with all sorts of intentions. A great deal of teenage learning comes through direct experience. It occurs unexpectedly, and in unusual places. I learned a great deal about myself one particular week last year when I did not sleep at all through the course of the entire week. Among other things, I learned that I can sleep standing up. The point is, I needed to learn that the hard way. The hacllucinating and endless hours of nonproductivity were important parts of my learning experience. High school is not about learning the crap that comes with the text books. It's about learning how to be a functioning person, and multitasking is an important part of that learning process. Making mistakes, studying the wrong way, and blowing off assignments in favor of playing guitar or sleeping are all important parts of becoming a person. Sometimes a dog has to get his ass kicked in order to learn how to run with the pack.
Philosophy aside, multitasking is important in a very practical way. It represents a personal choice which ought to be respected for its learning value. I multitask. I write song lyrics while driving. I play guitar and write essays simultaneously. At this point, multitasking is the way I function. I have not yet figured out how to simply sit down and get something done. When I force myself to attempt to do so, the product ends up crappy. I am in the middle of a learning curve. Let me find the water. If I'm thirsty, I'll drink.
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Spoken like someone who doesn't listen to enough Paul Simon. Is there any modern person who's authority is equal to or greater than the authority of Dante, Shakespeare, or Einstein?
Or do all our great thinkers have to be dead?
That's not to say I don't agree with your overarching point. It the Paul Simon part that vexes me.
I'm replying too! Woot! I never got a response to my argument, even if it's true in my specific case only. My writing is based almost entirely on the mood I'm in. The happier I am, the funnier I am, the better I write. Multitasking makes me quite happy, and the more I'm talking to friends on AIM and to hotties on the phone and looking at dirty pictures of D&D miniatures on the internet, the better I'm writing my short stories. Is that an impossibility? Or am I one of the rare ones who has used multitasking to develop a supreme superhuman like totally awesome hax0r ability to use multitasking to pwn stuff? I obviously wasn't multitasking while writing this response or it would have been better...
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock
I am an island
-Paul Simon
[The following replaces comment deleted above; I've revised some diction and a spelling error.]
It is interesting that Craig finds Paul Simon's authority to be greater than Dante's or Newton's or Shakespeare's or Einstein's, whose works, which Craig is studying, are, according to the song, crap. I wonder if a song about all the crap he learns from pop music would carry as much weight with him.
The fact that one may learn useful lessons from foolish behavior that one has survived does not seem to be sufficient evidence that folly should be embraced as a system of education.
As for his multitasking, Craig is free to do as he likes. However, I would suggest that until he has experimented by writing an essay with total concentration, the data supporting his correlation of multitasking and quality of output are incomplete.
To Wingdaloo:
I don't find any earlier comment from you, unless you're Russ. If you're Russ, you didn't really make an argument. In any case, I'm not for curtailing your fun or communication or self. I'm just saying that the writing of a multitasker will usually have less quality that of a concentrator.
To Evander, I was singing and memorizing Paul Simon songs before either of you was born or thought of. "Ah, but I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now" (as a better poet has written). I've lived with them and with those who live by them, and I say Shakespeare is better. No you don't have to be dead to be great. But you do have to be great.
To Craig, if you think a professional teenage rebel is less of a rock or an island than an English teacher trying to communicate the complexity of life and the meaning of art, all I can say is that I have the advantage of knowing that time will tell.
I haven't seen the Time Magazine article cyrus refers to, but here's one from the New York Times:
Slow Down, Multitaskers; Don’t Read in Traffic
People who are in high stress positions, for example in business, need to multi-task. It is just that simple; it is the way of the world. Unless one is shielded from the world, one better learn how to do it sooner rather than later. The students should learn how to do it. They can still enjoy a book. Enjoying a book does not mean that one cannot multi-task when necessary. And multi-tasking does not mean one cannot focus on single objects, like a book. I understand you may want your students to listen to you in class. Multi-tasking, however, is a necessary life skill at this time and place. That is the way it is.
Anonymous is right of course about the need to be able to multi-task, and not only in positions of high stress, but in everyday life. We have to drive a car while figuring out where we're going, or time the fish to be done when the rice is.
Anonymous is reducing the problem at hand, however. In principle it is true that being able to do multiple tasks does not mean one can't also concentrate on a book. But in practice, the kind of multi-tasking that is going on now DOES mar the ability to concentrate in a focused way on a single thing.
As in most things in life, the middle way is the best way. We need to be able to multi-task as necessary while not falling into the addictive disease of fearing boredom if we don't have twenty electronic things going on at once.
Dr. Rap:
I did not reduce the problem, I just presented reality outside the confines of a classroom: multi-tasking is a reality in today's world. Of course one has to pay attention to you in your class. Simple enough. No problem reduction. No multi-tasking required. Just listen to Dr. Rap and stop playing. The issue is paying attention--not an unusual school problem. (Resepctfully, maybe the subject was not stimulating even though you are a great teacher. I am sure you have been bored on occaision.)
The world outside the classroom moves much faster than it did when you were in high school, college, or even 10 years ago. Multi-tasking is necessary to keep pace with that world. It probably is not necessary in a high school literature class or where life is deliberately slow, say at a remote location. Such places, however, are not likely destinations for the majority of your students. The students, of course, should pay attention in your class; it is not extremely difficult to sit and pay attention for the bright young minds who are admitted at the Bishop's School.
Multi-tasking, which I am sure you agree, will be learned elsewhere, and not in certain classrooms.
One comment. You wrote as follows:
"How do I know this? Because I’ve done both. I’ve multi-tasked and I’ve read good books. Reading good books is better."
Thank you for recognizing the importance of experience. I am sure that in this context you have it, as you "have done both." (Cooking rice and fish at the same time is fine too.) But what about all the myriad subjects you comment upon? Have you "done" those things also? Book knowledge--theory--will only obtain for one so much, including so much knowledge; it has very distinct limits. First-hand life experience outside a classroom is required.
Thank you for your interesting blog.
Anonymous seems to be driving us into either/or thinking. "Multitasking is a reality in today's world." Well, yes, there's a lot of it going on. But Aristotle would counsel us that there is the right amount, and too much, and not enough, and virtue lies in striking the golden mean. My point is that one should think about whether and how the multitasking is affecting one's life and adjust accordingly. In short, don't be unconscious.
The world moves much faster, yes, but toward what? "Keep pace with the world"? In what race? What is the end of this rushing? I'm not calling for our all turning hermit or going into hibernation. Only for some honest attention to what divided attention does to us.
I usually don't have too much trouble getting students to pay attention in my class. My original concern was with their lack of focused attention when they are on their own thinking they are reading when they are also on five electronic communication devices at the same time.
About "the importance of experience," once again we are offered an either/or world: either one thinks first-hand experience is important or it isn't. Either one has experience outside the classroom or one doesn't. What nonsense. Obviously life is both thought and experience for all of us, in varying degrees depending on the kind of thought and experience we're talking about.
The artificial division of life into "book knowledge--theory" on one hand and "first-hand life experience" on the other, like the artificial division of inside the classroom and outside, is shallow. If Anon. has a particular charge against me for speaking about what I have not experienced, let's have it. But to set up a conflict between the principle of intellectual activity and the principle of life experience is absurd, a false dichotomy not worth debating. What goes on inside the classroom is life, is experience. What goes on outside it requires thought and knowledge. Enough with these gnostical divisions. Let's have more Tao, more tai-chi, more awareness of the attraction, balance, and harmony of opposites.
Some worthwhile thoughts on multitasking by Josh Waitzkin here: part 1, part 2.
An excerpt:
Classrooms across America have been overrun by the multi-tasking virus. Teachers are bereft. This is the year that Facebook has taken residence in the national classroom.
Students defend this trend by citing their generation’s enhanced ability to multi-task. Unfortunately, the human mind cannot, in fact, multi-task without drastically reducing the quality of our processing. Brain activation for listening is cut in half if the person is trying to process visual input at the same time. A recent study at The British Institute of Psychiatry showed that checking your email while performing another creative task decreases your IQ in the moment 10 points. That is the equivalent of not sleeping for 36 hours—more than twice the impact of smoking marijuana.
(Waitzkin was the subject of the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fisher.)
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