Multitasking/ Distraction

1. Why is multitasking considered by many psychologists to be a myth?
It is considered a myth by psychologists because they say that it is impossible to multitask. We believe we are multitasking but we are actually just distracting ourselves and not absorbing the information correctly. When we are "multitasking" we are doing more than one thing at a time and we are not concentrating in one. So, actually to multitask is effective in the short term because you finish things faster but in the long term it is worst because you do not recall the information.

2. To what does the term "response selection bottleneck" refer?
It is the same with your attention that when you are trying to pay attention to a lot of things your brain can't process everything at the same time so you stop paying attention and you are not able to completely understand anything. It is also a form of saying that you will probably have to decide what thing you will pay more attention to and won't really concentrate in everything.

3. David Meyer has found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline. Why is this important?
It is important because this psychology causes stress and he says that multitasking is effective while doing it because it is faster but in the long term may cause problems. The release of hormones and adrenaline can cause and contribute to the loss of short-term memory loss.


4. Explain what Russell Podrack found regarding multitasking.
He found that multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you understand while multitasking you are unconsciously learning less because that learning is flexible and you can't learn the information entirely. His research shows that we use different parts of the brain for learning and storing information and when we are multitasking the information is stored in the striatum a place involved with learning new skills but not in the hippocampus a place involved with sorting and recalling information. So the information is not well stored.


5. What does the author conclude could happen to our culture as a result of increased multitasking?
That we will not learn well and if we keep using the cell phone and computer while doing homework the information won't be stored in the correct place and we will lose the information rapidly. It concludes that multitasking it a form of distraction for a person that is trying to learn.