Freedom, digital distraction and control Annie Murphy Paul has an excellent article in Slate and this publication this week about the issue of digital distraction while learning. A recently published study by psychologist Larry Rosen found that in a short 15-minute period of observation, teenagers spent only 65 percent of their time studying. Their attention drifted after an average of 2 minutes from reading and writing their assignments to activities like Facebook, texting and instant messaging–and all this was while they knew they were being watched. Digital distraction or multitasking is a modern scourge, not just for young people. The question is what to do about it. Control by authority means putting the teacher and school in charge of students’ access to technology: banning cellphones in school, instituting “screens down” policies, and enlisting teachers to police students’ behavior from moment to moment. Control through technology means designing tools to nudge students in the direction of desired use.
Why Teaching Mindfulness Benefits Students’ Learning Teaching Strategies Flickr:Sudhamshu The following is an excerpt from Learning to BREATHE: A Mindfulness Curriculum for Adolescents to Cultivate Emotion Regulation, Attention, and Performance By Patricia C. What do children and adolescents need to be successful in life? There is little doubt that in addition to academic success, we also want our youth to be happy and well. These goals are far from being disconnected: we now realize the fundamental role that social and emotional well-being play in the attainment of academic outcomes. Although the emphasis on academic achievement often captures most of the attention in debates on school reform, important inroads are being made by those who take a more holistic approach to education. Many prominent voices have joined together to call for inclusion of social and emotional learning within K–12 school curricula. [RELATED: The Importance of Teaching Mindfuless] When feelings are not well managed, thinking can be impaired. Moving to Practice 1. 2.
The new marshmallow test: Resisting the temptations of the web By Annie Murphy Paul This story also appeared at: Living rooms, dens, kitchens, even bedrooms: Investigators followed students into the spaces where homework gets done. Pens poised over their “study observation forms,” the observers watched intently as the students—in middle school, high school, and college, 263 in all—opened their books and turned on their computers. For a quarter of an hour, the investigators from the lab of Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University-Dominguez Hills, marked down once a minute what the students were doing as they studied. A checklist on the form included: reading a book, writing on paper, typing on the computer—and also using email, looking at Facebook, engaging in instant messaging, texting, talking on the phone, watching television, listening to music, surfing the web. Photo by Erin Scott “We were amazed at how frequently they multitasked, even though they knew someone was watching,” Rosen says. Another study, carried out at St.
News: Frequent Cell Phone Use Linked to Anxiety, Lower Grades and Reduced Happiness in Students, Kent State Research Shows Today, smartphones are central to college students’ lives, keeping them constantly connected with friends, family and the Internet. Students’ cell phones are rarely out of reach whether the setting is a college classroom, library, recreational center, cafeteria or dorm room. As cell phone use continues to increase, it is worth considering whether use of the device is related to measurable outcomes important for student success, such as academic performance, anxiety and happiness. Kent State University researchers Andrew Lepp, Ph.D., Jacob Barkley, Ph.D., and Aryn Karpinski, Ph.D., all faculty members in the university’s College of Education, Health and Human Services, surveyed more than 500 university students. Daily cell phone use was recorded along with a clinical measure of anxiety and each student’s level of satisfaction with their own life, or in other words happiness. For more information about Kent State’s College of Education, Health and Human Services, visit www.kent.edu/ehhs.
Kids' Self-Control Is Crucial for Their Future Success Self-control—the ability to regulate our attention, emotions and behaviors—emerges in childhood and grows throughout life, but the skill varies widely among individuals. Past studies have reported that self-control is partially inherited and partially learned and that those with less self-control are more likely to be unemployed, engage in unhealthy behaviors such as overeating, and live a shorter life. A recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA tying childhood self-control to health and well-being in adulthood suggests that everyone, not just those most lacking the skill, would benefit from a self-control boost. Psychologist Terrie E. Moffitt of Duke University and her team focused on the self-control of a group of 1,037 children born in 1972 and 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. The investigators observed the children and took reports from parents and teachers every two years from the ages of three to 11.
The Myth Of Multitasking Up next, we'll be focusing on you and your true love - your smartphone. Think about it. Are you lost without it? Inconsolable if the two of you are separated? Willing to walk into a lamppost rather than look up while texting? Is it the object of your desire? And your romance is about to be taken to a new level. Now the two of you need never be separated for even one moment. My next guest says our technology-addicted lifestyle and our nonstop multitasking may be affecting our ability to concentrate, manage our emotions, even think creatively. DR. FLATOW: Excuse me for my cough. NASS: I'm fearful and optimistic. FLATOW: How distracted are we today? NASS: Remarkably so. FLATOW: I'm Ira Flatow. But people used to say, oh, television. NASS: Well, it's true that radio and television do distract us. We also have a number of new devices. FLATOW: Yeah. FLATOW: Yeah, but there are people who say, you know, I'm great at multitasking. FLATOW: And it's quite noticeable on tests. NASS: Yeah.
Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction By all rights, Vishal, a bright 17-year-old, should already have finished the book, ’s “Cat’s Cradle,” his summer reading assignment. But he has managed 43 pages in two months. He typically favors , and making digital videos. On YouTube, “you can get a whole story in six minutes,” he explains. Students have always faced distractions and time-wasters. Researchers say the lure of these technologies, while it affects adults too, is particularly powerful for young people. “Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing,” said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston. But even as some parents and educators express unease about students’ digital diets, they are intensifying efforts to use technology in the classroom, seeing it as a way to connect with students and give them essential skills. But he also plays video games 10 hours a week. Growing Up With Gadgets
Listen while you work: What music does to your brain Damn. I forgot my headphones. Nothing has a more negative impact on my day than showing up to our office without them. Like most people, music is a huge part of my life and my tastes are constantly changing based on how I feel or what I’m doing. I listen to the most music while I work, sifting through playlists, from jazz, to indie pop, to electronica, on what seems to be a never-ending search for the perfect tunes to keep me in the zone. When I looked back at all my favorite playlists, I wondered what effect music has had on my work and more specifically, which types of music have had the most impact. I thought it’d be interesting to take a dive into the science behind the deep power of music to find out if it actually helps you work better. Why you love music Whether you’re listening to the driving beat of a Daft Punk song or the opening chords of a mellow Jack Johnson track, both have an effect on your brain that is not seen in any other animal. ‘Two cheeseburgers equals one orgasm.’ – PBS
With Tech Tools, How Should Teachers Tackle Multitasking In Class? Important research compiled on the effects of students multitasking while learning shows that they are losing depth of learning, getting mentally fatigued, and are weakening their ability to transfer what they have learned to other subjects and situations. Educators as well as students have noticed how schoolwork suffers when attention is split between homework and a buzzing smartphone. Many students, like Alex Sifuentes, who admit to multitasking while studying, know the consequences well. “When I was grounded for a couple of months and didn’t have my phone, I got done extra early with homework,” Sifuentes wrote in response to Annie Murphy Paul’s article, “How Does Multitasking Change the Way Kids Learn?” Parents also see a big difference in their kids’ studying habits. “Devices that once were just an entertainment tool are also becoming our educational and work tools.” “Look, it’s not going away. “Look, it’s not going away. How will students stay focused? Related
That quiz you aced and shared? Maybe it was rigged. | Avataric I find a couple of shared quizzes in my Facebook feed every day. Most of them are goofy, but when it comes to fact-based quizzes, it seems that nobody ever shares the ones they bomb. Is that because of human nature: image crafting, socially-acceptable bragging, and taking quizzes on which you expect to excel anyway? This morning, a quiz asking “Could you pass the German citizenship test?” I chose the 1st answer to every question: my score was 100%I chose the 2nd answer to every question: 90% (2 answers wrong)I chose the 3rd answer to every question: 95% (1 answer wrong)I chose answers in the pattern of A, B, C, A, B, C, etc.: 95%I tried to choose a wrong answer on every question: 100%! Hmmmmmmm. So, I took another quiz on the same site. I began to comb my Facebook feed to see what other fact-based quizzes people were sharing, but I only see entertainment-style quizzes now. Conversation starters: “What natural disaster is your temper like?” Like this: Like Loading... Related
How Does Multitasking Change the Way Kids Learn? Using tech tools that students are familiar with and already enjoy using is attractive to educators, but getting students focused on the project at hand might be more difficult because of it. Living rooms, dens, kitchens, even bedrooms: Investigators followed students into the spaces where homework gets done. Pens poised over their “study observation forms,” the observers watched intently as the students—in middle school, high school, and college, 263 in all—opened their books and turned on their computers. For a quarter of an hour, the investigators from the lab of Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University-Dominguez Hills, marked down once a minute what the students were doing as they studied. “We were amazed at how frequently they multitasked, even though they knew someone was watching,” Rosen says. “I don’t care if a kid wants to tweet while she’s watching American Idol, or have music on while he plays a video game. The media multitasking habit starts early.
Here’s the real nightmare scenario for self-driving cars After nearly 10 years of relentless hype for autonomous (“self-driving”) vehicles, the bloom seems to be coming off the rose. In terms of the hype cycle outlined by research consultancy Gartner, autonomous vehicles are plunging down from the “peak of inflated expectations” into the “trough of disillusionment.” One form the disillusionment takes is skepticism toward AVs’ alleged safety advantages. Last week, a pedestrian in Arizona was struck and killed by a “semi-autonomous” vehicle, i.e., a vehicle that will drive itself part of the time but requires a human driver as backup. The backup driver of another semi-autonomous vehicle was killed last year when it slammed into a semi-truck. The other form of disillusionment has to do with a growing concern among urbanists that AVs will, by making personal-vehicle travel so much more convenient, induce more of it. But I do share the second concern. As a business model, advertising is toxic Want to freak yourself out? And it works.
Divided attention and memory: evidence of substantial interference ... Classroom Laptop Users Distract Others As Well As Themselves Thursday, April 25, 2013 It won’t surprise anyone to learn that having a laptop computer open in a lecture class is an invitation to distraction for the user. But what about the students sitting nearby? A new study by a group of researchers at McMaster and York universities, both in Canada, finds evidence that laptop use in college classrooms distracts not just laptop owners, but their classmates as well. The researchers begin their article, published last month in the journal Computers & Education, by reviewing what we know about learning while our attention is divided: “Research suggests that we have limited resources available to attend to, process, encode, and store information for later retrieval. When we eventually retrieve information that was processed without interruptions, as a primary task, we are likely to experience minimal errors. These findings “are especially significant when considered in the context of student learning,” the authors note: The authors conclude: