Comments on: Good and Bad Multitasking? http://iorgforum.org/blog/2009/05/19/good-and-bad-multitasking/ IORG members post on information overload topics Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:03:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Kevin Arthur http://iorgforum.org/blog/2009/05/19/good-and-bad-multitasking/comment-page-1/#comment-12741 Kevin Arthur Tue, 19 May 2009 18:07:25 +0000 http://iorgforum.org/blog/2009/05/19/good-and-bad-multitasking/#comment-12741 His concept sounds a bit like Linda Stone's "Continuous Partial Attention." It makes some sense, and I think it's probably true that people switch between tasks a lot more frequently than they used to, but it seems like we're not recognizing the cost. Somebody should do a study and see whether those students who google stuff during lectures do any better or worse than a student who googles afterwards. Or whether people gain anything from tweeting during a conference talk. If it's a boring lecture and you don't care about it then sure, you're accomplishing more if you do something else instead, but you're not getting as much from the lecture. His concept sounds a bit like Linda Stone’s “Continuous Partial Attention.” It makes some sense, and I think it’s probably true that people switch between tasks a lot more frequently than they used to, but it seems like we’re not recognizing the cost.

Somebody should do a study and see whether those students who google stuff during lectures do any better or worse than a student who googles afterwards. Or whether people gain anything from tweeting during a conference talk. If it’s a boring lecture and you don’t care about it then sure, you’re accomplishing more if you do something else instead, but you’re not getting as much from the lecture.

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