Article Review: Media multi-taskers

In the article “Media multi-taskers are ‘deluded’,” by Annie Murphy Paul the author is of the view that using latest communication technology tools such as Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging apps students are unable to concentrate on their studies and cannot go for at least 15 minutes without “engaging with their devices”. The author highlights a recent conducted by Rosen according to which the students cannot learn properly the material taught in the class if they are engaged in media multitasking activities. Annie also proposes that the engagement of multimedia tasking starts in the early age of 8 which has no doubt become a serious concern to worry about. Annie argues that even though a person can do two tasks together but due to this he or she might be deluded and negative outcomes start to emerge. The engagement of multitasking causes mental fatigue to the students’ due to which they start doing mistakes in their work. For instance, the students lose their cognitive ability and start to pay less attention to their tasks. The main reason for these negative outcomes is due to the distraction that is caused by these multimedia tasks. Another study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences proposes that students who were engaged in the multitasking adept less to the work as compared to the group of students who did not engage in the multimedia tasks. Thus, the article by Murphy shows in depth how the multimedia tasks have made the individuals especially the students to pay less attention to their studies and more attention to their instant messaging and other activities. The author concludes with an important message that our young generation is not being raised the way the young was raised in the past and such types of issues should be considered as a serious matter of concern.