Let me give you a scenario. You are in a lesson or a lecture, you are listening diligently to your teacher and taking detailed notes. Suddenly you receive a text from your friend asking you how your day is going. As a good friend you respond promptly. As you put your phone down, you try to get back into the flow of the lesson wondering what you missed. You then get a new notification from Facebook telling you that “X” bought a new phone. Now you are thinking of updating yours. Oh yeah, time to get back to your lesson. Wait, there is a new email that just arrived about your new assignment… Wow, is it the end of the lesson? How did the time pass so quickly?
You might think that this was a productive hour of your time. You attended the lesson, caught up with Facebook and responded to your emails and texts. You multitasked like a pro. But what if I were to tell you that you were actually switchtasking instead - the phenomenon described in the great book by Dave Crenshaw:
You simply switched between tasks many times, rather than focusing on one task. So what is the problem and how does this affect your academic work?
1. There is a time cost
Every time you switch between tasks, there is a time cost that is associated with it. It is estimated that on average it takes 5 minutes to check your phone or laptop and get back into the flow of the original task. This means if you were to check your phone 5 times in 1 hour, it would cost you 25 minutes per hour. Almost half of your focused study time is gone!
A recent questionnaire revealed that 69% of students text message, 28% use Facebook and 21% use other media during their lessons (Junco et al., 2012). There is therefore a massive wastage of time in almost every single class.
2. Grades decrease by at least 10%
There are numerous studies that have assessed the effect of multitasking/switchtasking using technology during classes (summarised in May and Elder, 2018). The compelling conclusion across all of them is that multitasking significantly reduces test scores by approximately 10%-30% (Froese et al., 2010; Wood et al., 2012; Sana et al., 2013). Unsurprisingly, these experiments also highlight that students who use no technology during their classes and instead use a pen and paper to write notes, outperform their peers in tests.
In summary, technology switchtasking during your studies can cost you at least 10%, which could equate to a whole grade in your exams!
3. Decrease in work memory and attention span
It is not surprising that by switching between academic tasks and checking phones or laptops, we are lowering our attention span. We tell our brain that it is acceptable to lose focus and switch between tasks whenever we want. Academic research has shown that media multitasking may lead to reduced cognitive control, lower working memory and decreased task efficiency (Schuur et al., 2015; Uncapher et al., 2015; Madore et al., 2020). Shockingly, one study has shown that, on average, students could not focus on a task for more than 6 minutes without a technological disruption (Rosen et al., 2013).
We simply can only allocate our attention to one task at a time, so the choice is yours!
Immediate study strategies to implement:
1. Know the scientific evidence
We have all been told not to use our phones or computers while studying. But everyone does it, including myself. We all know it distracts us, but we still do it. This article summarises some of the experiments and data on how media multitasking affects our studies. It is important to know this scientific evidence. If you know that technology multitasking may cost you a whole grade, then you are more likely to reduce it.
2. Adopt “Resist the switch” as a new habit
Treat checking your phone or computer during your studies as a bad habit. Every time you realise you are about to do it, try to “resist the switch” and implement this as a good habit. You can reinforce this by knowing that you saved more time for your studies. Remember that switching between tasks on average costs 5 minutes. The best thing is to turn off your notifications or keep your phone out of sight.
3. Schedule technology/media breaks into your studies
We live in a world in which we love our technology and media. I would recommend scheduling 10 minute media breaks per hour of your studies. This would be a nice pause from your work and you can catch up on everything without disrupting your studies. This also acts as a reward for your focused 50 minutes of study.
4. Spread the word
Interestingly, one study found that test scores can be reduced by around 17% if a student has direct view of a peer using media during class (Sana et al., 2013). If you see your friends using technology near you, that can also decrease your grade! So spread the word and please like and share this article.
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