Category: Multitasking

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One at a Time: The Hidden Power of Singular Focus

By Gabrielle Penberthy

Running Away Balloon Meme | MULTITASKING: LISTENING TO MUSIC WHILE STUDYING; YOU; MULTITASKING: LISTENING TO MUSIC WHILE STUDYING; ME: YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO STUDY EFFICIENTLY; YOU | image tagged in memes,running away balloon | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

While studying, everyone has experienced the need to snap back others, listen to music, and browse Instagram. We laugh when we communicate with others, we groove to music, and we stay connected when we browse Instagram. We run the risk of drifting from our study goals when we engage in these activities while studying. It is all fun and games until we get a bad grade on that important test or the homework assignment that is half of the final grade. I understand how difficult it might be to resist temptation when your phone is so close. I find myself picking up my phone to put on music or snap others back. But when I do this, I find that I start singing along to the music, which diverts my attention from my studies. Why is this a task so hard to complete? Divided attention, or multitasking, is the term used to describe this. When this occurs, I typically end up with a low grade or find it difficult to respond to an important quiz question. This causes an excessive amount of worry and self-doubt.  

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Put down that Phone and Focus!

By Odessa Grove

Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, and iHeartRadio are all amazing apps created to provide people, from anywhere, music at any time. Music provides everyone with a sense of feeling all different kinds of moods and can be listened to for whatever occasion. Some people want to dance around their kitchen, while others just want to scream a breakup song in the privacy of their cars. Finally, what my friend and I like to do is carpool to karaoke. However, some people find themselves listening to music while they are studying. I know I am no saint when it comes to watching YouTube videos or streaming Hulu while I am studying for tests or writing a paper. I mean, it is impossible not to when my phone is right there. However, whatever I might be listening to while studying or writing a paper, I often find myself being very distracted and end up procrastinating on my assignment. I always stress about my grade, so I know I should focus on the task in hand. However, I always get stuck on what is happening on social media right now, or, depending on the song, I will just start to sing my heart out and not even care about my assignment anymore. Why, why is this a difficult task to do? Well, the answer is the result of divided attention, or more well-known name, multitasking. 

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Is the Load Too Much to Bare?

By Sarah C. McSparin

You feel as though everything is piling up and you’ll never get it all done. Join the club! Your not alone; there are thousands of students and employees with a mountain of responsibilities that seem too overwhelming. Not to mention the countless distractions life throws at you, especially cell phones. You wish there was some formula for completing all the tasks your assigned. Unfortunately there is not but by gaining knowledge about your ability to pay attention you can learn some tips and tricks to help you focus your attention on the things you want while ignoring the things that are distracting.

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Cell Phone Nation

By Angela Watson

The modern debate of how much cell phones distract us from everyday responsibilities can be settled by cognitive psychology. Researchers found that the average person only studies for approximately six minutes before moving on to a new task, which was primarily linked to cell phone and media usage (1). The prefrontal cortex is designed to only focus on a single item, leaving us to “swap focus” between items at a rapid pace when we multitask (2).

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Stop, Drop and Roll Your Way Into a 4.0 GPA

By Kyle Oakes

Have you ever left class and wondered why you can barely remember a thing? I want you to try to remember what you were doing in that class. If you are like most college students, you probably snuck in a text message during the class, or maybe you clicked on that Facebook notification that popped up. Maybe you just dozed off. All of these could be affecting your grade drastically. In order to help your grade, you want to set those notifications, and ringer, on silent for the duration of the course, and stop dividing your attention to the wrong thing.

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Game. Mental Set. Match.

By Randee Blickenstaff

From the moment you walk through the doors of high school, people are preaching to you about the impending storm that is college.  Teachers preach to you for four long years about how everything that is taught within the walls of your sacred high school is to prepare you for the years of university life ahead.  Well, maybe I missed the part where football games and homecoming are any sort of foreshadowing to college, but for the most part high school faculty hits the nail on the head.  However, they seem to be missing one huge detail.  COLLEGE IS A WHOLE NEW WORLD.

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Music While Studying: Does It Motivate Or Distract?

By Marissa Corder

Can music help you study more efficiently? Unfortunately, this question is not easy to answer, and research has yielded contradictory evidence. The effect of music on cognitive performance depends on a multitude of factors including tempos of songs, types of cognitive tasks being performed (such as reading comprehension or solving algebra problems), and prior listening experiences. The arousal and mood hypothesis proposes that music’s influence on cognitive performance is a result of physiological responses (1). This hypothesis was developed to explain the “Mozart effect” – the popular misconception that listening to Mozart makes you smarter; that is, after Mozart-listening sessions, participants scored higher on spatial abilities compared to silent conditions or listening to instructions on relaxation (2). Later research found supporting evidence for the arousal and mood hypothesis and thus, “busted” the erroneous conclusion of a causal relationship between music and intelligence.

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Please Give Me Your Divided Attention: Multitasking While Studying

By Aileen Tierney and Erin McQuitty

Picture this: You’re trying to study for your first college exam, but your phone keeps buzzing. You try to answer texts and check your notifications while also reading your textbook in between. You think you have a handle on your studies because of this multitasking, but when it’s time to take your test, you realize you don’t remember anything you read about before. Why?!

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Low-Load vs. High-Load: How Distractions Really Affect Your Studying Habits

By Olivia Arnold and Ashley Gottardo

The transition to college can be a rough period for most students, ripe with a new school, new friends,  and a new sense of independence. Through all of these new experiences one realizes many areas of their life change in ways they didn’t expect- namely in their approach to studying. This is more of a forced change, and in order to succeed you will likely have to actively make it on your own. Lucky for you, we’re here to explain what areas may benefit the most from change, help you cope with your changing study habits, and give you tips for how to succeed in college.

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