Media Multitasking

The Kaiser Family Foundation acknowledges that, “Eight in ten school-age children media multitask” (397). This large number of children and young adults who have reported that they engage in media multitasking, using more than one form of media at once, is alarming because although many people have the idea that media multitasking is productive and time-saving, it actually affects us in our daily lives by endangering our social and mental health. Our culture’s distorted view on media multitasking states that it is beneficial and more efficient than compartmentalizing tasks and completing them separately.
Mental health is a very fragile aspect of humanity and if every time we access some sort of media, we release a waterfall of information
Media multitasking involves switching from one form of media to another and, usually, back again. As a culture, we are used to being sent lots of small pieces of information and viewing them quickly (Watkins 393). We also tend to indulge in more than one of these small pieces of information simultaneously; this behavior conditions us to learn information in small quick bursts. Negatively, we find difficulty in trying to access and understand information in the real world where it can come in large amounts and we are expected to retain it over an extended period of time. The negative aspects of media multitasking on our social behavior can also be seen in our inability to slow down and to focus on one subject at a time. This is prevalent in our everyday lives, expressed through schooling, work, and relationships. [Enter statistic comparing media multitasking and attentiveness in class.] Media multitasking originated from our society’s desire to be successful and complete different aspects of life as quickly as possible. Our culture has taught us to strive for originality so in this quest we attempt to accomplish as many things as possible because at least one of them has to be an original idea. Most people can identify with experiencing this desire to keep up with our culture’s expectations; Even [Quote from B. a. 1.] Another key contributor is how our society tells us that we are good at media multitasking. A twenty-two year old college student named Justine was quoted saying, “Multitasking is easy and natural for us” (398). Being raised to believe that all of us fit into this box of being good at something, we often try to be good at it even if it doesn’t come naturally for us. For example, when I was between the ages of ten and twelve, I continuously forced myself to listen to music while I worked on school work as well as when a teacher would ask the class if we wanted to listen to