For the past two months, I have been burning the midnight oil with articles related to cognitive load theory, dual tasking and the nature of expertise. I know, this is a strange combination but that is a story for another time. From this strange mix of reading, I came across some information that might be of interest to many in the community.

Do you remember the days of studying for high school finals or working on a paper? You were “in the zone” when your parents dropped by the room and asked you to turn your music off or get off the phone. “You could not possibly be studying effectively with that music on or while talking on the phone”, they said. You grumbled and turned it off. We really did not know what to call it in those days. However, today, we all recognize this as multi-tasking.

Multitasking is more prevalent than ever. In a recent study on youth and media usage conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, they found that the TV was still king. The top five types of media usage included: TV, Internet, music, However, if you added up all of the percentages of time that kids 8 to 18 spent on these different types of media, you would find that there was little time for anything else. Now, you are probably ahead of me and realize this is because they are all multi-tasking. Yes, our students are comfortable working on homework while watching TV (with mute on), IM’ing three friends simultaneously, taking on their speakerphone while listening to music pay on their MP3 player that is docked in the corner of their room. Ask them to focus on just their homework and you will get an interesting look. They will argue, much as we did, that they can learn best while multi-tasking.

However, in recent studies conducted surrounding cell phone use and driving, they have found some interesting if not disturbing results. These studies have tried to isolate the act of “the call” from other aspects of the call such as dialing a number or holding the phone. They looked at insurance data from states with cell phone laws that limit driving and talking on a phone to hands-free phones only, states that do not allow any use of a phone while driving and states where there are no limitations. Any guess as to the results? The only place where there was not a significant level of distraction were in states where it was illegal to use a phone while driving. They saw now difference statistically between the states that allowed calls with hands-free devices and states with no limitations. In other words, there was more to the distraction than holding the phone.

Additional studies conducted in driving simulators determined that the decrease in driving ability caused by the act of talking on the phone was similar to driving while legally drunk. Multi-tasking does take a cognitive toll. If you want to wade through the research and read more, check out the research report. You can also check out this short report from Carnegie Mellon (a nicer read).

Now it is your turn
Here are a couple of simulations to test your ability to multi-task. Here are two videos. Watch the first one and try to remember as many words as you can. Do not write these words down until the video has finished. Now watch the second video. This time, you should try to write down as many states as you can think of while the video plays. When you are finished, write down as many words as you remember. How did you do? How do you think your students would do? What do we ask our kids to do as they are learning? If there are multiple tasks involved, are they constructed to minimize cognitive conflict?

Video 1

Video 2