The Impacts of Multi-tasking and the Pomodoro Method

Answer the following questions:

a. In general, how does multi-tasking impact your everyday life? Support your answer using course materials such as your audiocasts, notes, readings and/or videos.

b. Based on your experiences using the Pomodoro method, do you find single-tasking a better approach to learn information than multitasking? Why or why not?

Please include:

Analyze how multitasking impacts their daily life? Have they related their discussion to materials from the unit audiocasts, notes, readings and/videos?

Provide a detailed discussion about their experiences with the Pomodoro technique? Have they provided any comparison between single-tasking and multi-tasking?

Your completed assignment should be 1.5 to 2 pages in total (single-spaced). Answer each question separately in paragraph format.

Use 12 font, Times new Roman, Ariel or Calibri.

Reference all materials in APA or MLA as required.

A works cited page is required.

NATS 1505 Lecture 6: Is the Internet Changing the Way We Think and Process Information?

I. Internet Use and Cognitive Change  

• Debate about internet and cognitive change really started with Nicholas Carr’s articles, “Is Google Making Us Stupid” in 2008 and “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains” in 2010


• Eventually penned book The Shallows (2010) which examines issue in greater depth


• Carr’s major argument is that our dependency on the internet has come with a cost: we are increasingly losing our ability to engage in deep thinking or reading


• Small (2007) brain activity study: experienced internet ‘surfers’ versus inexperienced ‘surfers’ were given the task of online searching


• Study showed brain activity of experienced users more extensive in prefrontal cortex (area related to problem solving and decision making) than inexperienced users


• Within six days, novice users, who were asked to spend one hour a day online, also showed a marked change in their brain activity


• Small (2007): “five hours on the Internet and the naïve subjects has already rewired their brains”


• This idea is rooted in science of neuroplasticity: the human brain is plastic and malleable


• Loh and Kanai (2015): our cognitive processes and underlying anatomy historically have been impacted by behavioral and environmental changes (tool making, language, writing, math)


• Example: acquiring math and reading skills created specialized brain regions for things like recognizing words and numbers


• While it was long believed that this was true for children and that the adult brain was essentially fixed, neuroscientists today believe that nerve cells in the adult brain routinely sever and/or form connections as it adapts to new situations and experiences throughout one’s lifetime


• Carr suggests that if people stop using certain mental skills, brain will use that space for other skills being used more frequently (cognitive flexibility)


• Hodge and Harmon (2013): “plasticity helps to automate skills that are consistently used, conversely; it prunes skills that are not utilized”

II. Is Google Making Us Stupid?

• Yet according to Carr, is more brain activity better brain activity?


• The idea that frequent internet use rewires and reroutes neural pathways is cause for concern, especially when it promotes, “cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning”


• While certain cognitive skills are enhanced with online usage (hand-eye coordination, reflex response and visual processing), Carr labels these as “primitive mental functions”


• In contrast, negative consequences include concentration loss, attention deficit and a reduced ability to think deeply – it is increasingly difficult for instance, to read lengthy text without becoming easily distracted

• For example, research suggests you learn and remember more when you read linear text as opposed to text with hyperlinks


• Online reading frequently includes the opportunity to click on hyperlinks, which involves using more brain activity as you have to evaluate the link, decide if you want to click on it, and then adjust to the new layout  


• This creates more disruption and negatively impacts comprehension – it becomes more difficult to remember what you just read


• Hypertext environments therefore require higher processing demands (visual processing, decision-making, integrate content) but at same time reduce the ability to engage in deep processing and memory retention


• Long term, this can result in worse information learning


• This is associated with transferring information from working memory (more fragile, limited capacity) to long term memory (almost unlimited capacity) 


• Carr (2010): “Imagine filling a bathtub with a thimble; that is the challenge involved in moving information from working memory into long term memory. When we read a book, the information faucet provides a steady drip, which we can control by varying the pace of our reading. Through our single-minded concentration on the text, we can transfer much of the information into long term memory and forge the rich associations essential to the creation of knowledge and wisdom…on the Net, we face many information faucets, all going full blast. Our little thimble overflows as we rush from tap to tap. We transfer only a small jumble of drops from different faucets, not a continuous, coherent stream…”


• Engaging in multiple online activities also requires constant mental shifting as brain has to constantly reorient itself when moving from one task to another


• Some of Carr’s sentiments echoed by Richard Watson in his book Future Minds where he characterizes much of today’s youth as “screenagers” (a term coined by Dan Bloom)


• Watson (2010): Screenagers are multitaskers, prefer sensory laden experiences, process multiple streams of information at once, multitask, want instant responses and gratification


• A similar term is “digital native:” rapid attention shifting, shallow information processing, multitaskers, easily distracted, higher rate of internet-related addictions (reward processing, self-control)


• Digital natives (have grown up with internet) versus digital immigrants (adopted technology later in life)

III. Technological Determinism or Something Else?

• Marshall McLuhan once suggested that each new technology enhances some senses at the expense of others


• It is important to remember that Carr’s fears about internet use are similar to those people had for writing, the book, radio, television and other newly introduced media technologies – so why the concern?


• Carr (2008): the Internet absorbs different kinds of media but then “recreates” it in its own image: content is surrounded by things which constantly distract us (i.e. pop-ups, hyperlinks, digital ads)


• In the case of Internet use, this means that we have improved our visual and spatial skills, but this has come at the cost of reducing our “deep processing” skills such as in depth analysis or critical thinking 

• What happens when rapid scanning and browsing become a more dominant brain activity as opposed to deep and attentive thinking and reading?


• According to Loh and Kanai (2015), as people are increasingly using the internet to browse and scan for information, they engage more frequently in activities like key-word recognition and non-linear/selective reading which results in decreased attention to material


• Sparrow et al (2011): people who rely on internet to retrieve information are better at remembering where and how to get that information as opposed to recalling info itself


• Similar work has been done on people who take photographs as opposed to make observations about subjects


• Carr (2010): “We are evolving from being cultivators of personal knowledge to being hunters and gatherers in the electronic data forest”


• Compare this to the introduction of the book, which demands sustained and undivided attention


• Carr’s critics have called his views technologically deterministic


• While he uses a lot of determinist language, it might be better to examine his ideas from a social shaping perspective


• Wang & Tchernew (2012): “individuals choose and create their environment, including their media environment, but are also affected by their environment”

• Some researchers have noted possible ways countering the negative impact of learning in a hypertext environment


• This includes: having prior knowledge on subject, increased motivation/interest, meta-cognition (thinking about how you think), better navigational tools

IV. Internet and Transactive Memory

• Adrian Ward (2013): “Supernormal: How the internet is changing our memories and our minds”


• Transactive memory systems are mechanisms which allow individuals to code, store and retrieve knowledge and are based on two main elements: expertise and information access


• People store info in their own minds but they also offload some info onto “external” (often human)) sources such as friends and family


• Ward (2013): Transactive memory allows people to gain more in-depth knowledge by “off-loading” the responsibility of getting information onto another source, especially if that source has a higher level of expertise; it is a way of enhancing cognitive efficiency 


• According to Ward, internet is a “supernormal” stimulus that is having an impact on our use of transactive memory by increasingly replacing traditional human transactive memory systems


• Why? Exaggerated features of internetworking include: greater availability of information (omnipresence), more access to information and “experts” in a particular given field 


• Overreliance on internet: if information is always available, how likely are you going to commit it to your own memory? Why use your own memory when you can just “google” it?


• Creates situation where individual has little to no responsibility to retain information and in long run, may lead to less information being stored in our own internal memory


• This suggests increasing dependence on internet may make us less motivated and less able to create new memories


• Trivia experiment: people who knew trivia facts were stored in a computer failed to memorize facts even though they were told to do so – off-loaded responsibility for “knowing” facts to internet 


• Increasingly, when people do not know something, they think of using the internet as a transactive memory mechanism – increasing dependence on digital devices comes with inability to distinguish between info stored in own memory and online (external versus internal memory)


• This overconfidence in our own abilities may also lead to situations where we avoid new information since this info might expose our actual knowledge and force us to rethink our perspective on things


• Positive implications of using internet for transactive memory: less memory distortion, better problem solving/creative abilities that come with access to more information


• Watch Ken Jennings 2103 Ted Talk, think about his response to this problem (“power of one remembered fact”)

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to:

1. Define neuroplasticity and recognize its impact on lifetime learning

2. Analyze Carr’s argument that “more brain activity is not necessarily better brain activity” in relation to internet usage

3. Make connections between Carr’s arguments and Watson discussion about the rise of “screenagers”

4. Recognize why Carr considers brain change and internet use to be more problematic than the sensory changes that have occurred with the introduction of earlier communication technologies 

5. Debate whether Carr’s arguments are an example of technological determinism  

6. Understand the differences between traditional and ICT transactive memory systems

7. Analyze why “knowing” information is different from “googling” information