While perusing their e-mail, many people are also carrying on a couple of instant messaging conversations and/or checking out online news sites while Twittering or texting.
Does this sound familiar? If it does, you might be in more trouble than you realize.
A Stanford University study released last week found that, compared with people who don't have many distractions, those who are "regularly bombarded" with multiple streams of electronic information and media have more problems with their memory and have a harder time paying attention and switching from one task to another.
Scientists used to think that multitaskers had stronger focus than their single-tasking colleagues. Stanford said that its study, which put 100 students through three different tests, proved otherwise. Multitaskers "are suckers for irrelevancy," said Stanford professor Clifford Nass, a researcher who worked on the study. "Everything distracts them."
More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9137299/
Does this sound familiar? If it does, you might be in more trouble than you realize.
A Stanford University study released last week found that, compared with people who don't have many distractions, those who are "regularly bombarded" with multiple streams of electronic information and media have more problems with their memory and have a harder time paying attention and switching from one task to another.
Scientists used to think that multitaskers had stronger focus than their single-tasking colleagues. Stanford said that its study, which put 100 students through three different tests, proved otherwise. Multitaskers "are suckers for irrelevancy," said Stanford professor Clifford Nass, a researcher who worked on the study. "Everything distracts them."
More: http://computerworld.com/s/article/9137299/