Caution: Continuous Partial Attention Ahead
Rebecka Price
Dollieslager
English 111
3/29/15
Have you ever tried to text and drive, or talk on the phone while driving? Well this activity is a lot more dangerous than people may realize. Those few seconds spent looking down can easily cause a fatal accident. While this is a major topic nowadays, people brush it off. The whole “It’ll never happen to me” mentality, which used to just be a teenager problem to grow out of is now almost like a pandemic of people of every age. While one can sometimes get away with texting and driving without harm once or twice, there will eventually be the one time that the worst does happen, and someone's life is cut short. One should try, and honestly try, to wait before they answer a text in the car. They can leearn to manage their time so they get where they need to go safely and then proceed to answer any and all questions within texts is the best way to fix this problem. Text messages may be immediate, but it’s not that important that one should risk their life, or someone else’s life, for it.
Children between 13 and 18 years old, on average, use six types of media simultaneously, when they are not in school. This leads to something known as paying “continuous partial attention”. According to Sarah Sparks' article in Education Week, “continuous partial attention” affects the ability to retain the information one needs. As a result, they tend to miss things entirely. The brain cannot “be in two places at once”, for it cannot process two tasks at once. Trying to do two tasks at once only makes the tasks take longer than doing them one at a time. The tasks will eventually hit a “bottleneck” situation and the brain will decide which has higher priority. Making a choice means that there is a higher value in one task over the other. Therefore, they can’t be done simultaneously. People that multitask more, perform poorly on memory and attention tests when compared to those that do one thing at a time. Test takers that stop and answer texts during a test have not only lost time, they also lose their train of thought that would probably be beneficial to them passing. One study shows that this loss of thought can cost about an entire letter grade lower, in terms of score. The interruptions of texts, phone calls, emails, and the like while reading makes readers lose their place. So they go from simple eye movements to scanning entire pages looking for where they left off. The original “Marshmallow Test” shows that children who can hold off on their impulses tend to do better in their lives than those who cannot. In reality, there’s no such thing as legitimate multitasking, except in a computer. The act of simultaneously doing two things at once is impossible for the human brain. However one can learn to know when to switch from one task to another, which is a valuable ability that should be taught. It should be taught because it teaches impulse control, time management and many things that often lead to success later in life (Sparks).
Personally, I don’t multitask, simply because I find I work better when I focus on one thing till I can’t any longer. Afterward I reward myself by taking a break, instead of forcing myself to continue, simply because I won’t retain the information I forced myself to work on. Over the summer, I worked at a camp for children. At the time I was eighteen going on nineteen. Among other counselors my age and maybe one or two far older than I, none followed the simplest rule, except for me. That was turning in our cell phone, so it wasn’t a distraction. I learned that summer that I could go seven to nine hours without checking my phone. I feel this very much reinforces Spark’s points on multitasking highlighting one’s impulse control. I tend to work on my school work for hours on end and then stop take a break for fifteen or twenty minutes before going over it and continuing where I left off. I give my work a fresh start, rather than force myself through it. I have very good impulse control in that I can have my phone next to me and simply acknowledge the ding without losing focus as to not lose my place. This method of shifting focus is a skill I believe most should learn to develop. I find my time management has gotten better, my work is more thought out and I get better grades.
Once it is accepted that multitasking isn’t actually possible, how does one prioritize tasks? Well, based on Eisenhower’s “decision principals”, businessman Stephen Covey developed a matrix in order to sort tasks. He sorted them based on whether they were urgent or they were important, or both. People tend to get the meaning of urgent confused with important. The difference between urgent and important is that urgent means it’s something that needs immediate attention. Important tasks are more for the long term gain toward one's own goals. Covey’s matrix is split into quadrants: quadrant one, quadrant two, quadrant three and quadrant four. In each quadrant we list the tasks that are urgent and important. Meaning they affect now and the future. Urgent task are things such as: classes, going to the hospital, or work deadlines. Urgent tasks are placed in quadrant one. Quadrant one is perhaps the most stressful quadrant, and is where most working people tend to stay in terms of decision making. Quadrant two is the not urgent but important tasks. This quadrant is where Covey recommends people to spend more time in. Quadrant three contains things that are urgent but not important, like interruptions. Last but not least, quadrant four pertains things both not urgent and not important, which includes most people’s favorite thing to do, watch television. This knowledge allows people to prioritize tasks based one what it is they truly need to accomplish in life, or that day. It sets a guideline to sort tasks and almost place a value on their importanace. This modle can teach us which tasks are in the most need of attention. (Mckay).
When I used this matrix, I found that I spend far too much time in either quadrant four or quadrant one. In terms of how little time I spend in quadrant two, I enjoy wasting my time or stressing myself out in a sense. I’m sure if I could find that happy medium I’d have more time to spend in quadrant two. I spend most of my time in quadrant four, doing things I enjoy doing instead of things I need to get done. In doing this I have to switch to quadrant one in a rapid rush, in order to get anything done. I should be in two, but I enjoy my lollygagging and I will get better as time goes on to limit it, by spending more of my time doing things I need to get done, before I lollygag. To get into quadrant two for college, I think I would need basic needs minus the internet. As it’s what makes me unable to focus. Not my phone, or iPod, or any electronic device really. I will now use this matrix to do prioritize my school work and job, first. Then spend my time being productive and making something instead of just sitting around being a bum.
In short, what people believe to be multitasking simply is not. It is the thought that one has the ability to do many things at once that is why there is a trend among teenagers getting, for lack or better terms, stupider. They can no longer pay attention and retain information. This inability to retain information leads to poorer test scores. Teens only paying partial attention is what causes them to get into car accidents. This in turn may be the one of the major causes in the raising mortality rate of teenagers. If one's attention is not on the road, they need to get off the road. If they don’t they endanger anyone and everyone around them. So to all “multitaskers,” please slow down and pay attention to the things that are urgent and important so you can relax doing the things that are not urgent, but still important.
Works Cited
McKay, Brett, and Kate McKay. "The Eisenhower Decision Matrix: How to Distinguish Between Urgent and Important Tasks and Make Real Progress in Your Life." The Art of Manliness. 23 Oct. 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <http://www.artofmanliness.com/2013/10/23/eisenhower-decision-matrix/>.
Sparks, Sarah. "Studies on Multitasking Highlight Value of Self-Control." Education Week. 15 May 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2015. <http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/16/31multitasking_ep.h31.html?tkn=PTWFGpBwR5o7bKrnCvQZswL8Vr+lUoJB+62c&cmp=clp-edweek>.