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Some students like listening to music while doing their homework at home. My neighbor Rose is one of them. Sometimes she chats with her best friend online while downloading songs, and texting people on her mobile phone. “My parents keep telling me off for multi-tasking (多任务处理) while studying, but they don’t understand that it helps me concentrate” she says.
My parents used to tell me that it’s impossible for a person to do several things at the same time, but now the situation has come to a head. Young people today spend nearly six hours a day using smartphones, iPads or computers and doing some different things at the same time. This is the reason why they are called the “multi-tasking generation”, or “Generation M”. But how do their brains deal with multi-tasking? Automatic actions like walking and chatting on the phone can be done at the same time but, when it comes to learning new information, multi-tasking has a bad effect according to researchers.
Dividing your attention among many activities makes the knowledge you learn harder to use later on. We are not saying you shouldn’t multi-task; just don’t do it while you are trying to learn something new.
According to experts, it’s also important to take time away from electronic media. “At the sound of the bell, all my students reach into their bags and take out their mobile phones to text their friends. It is as if they were afraid of silence,” says Casey Roberts. “Their MP3 players, iPads and smartphones have become parts of themselves. I really think that Generation M should take time to relax. There’s life outside the screen and the pleasure of face-to-face communication can never be replaced.”