March 22, 2006

Multitasking

It seems many bloggers are commenting on the recent story in Time Magazine about teens and how they use multiple media at one time. For example, Andrew Careaga wonders, "Are kids too connected? Are we?" And Kathy Sierra says all this multitasking degrades performance at every level.

I've previously mentioned that I've noticed this media multitasking in my own teenage daughter. Actually, I do it myself a fair amount. IM, e-mail, phone calls, and conversations in the office with co-workers are all happening at the same time when I'm at work. Am I really as bad at multitasking as Kathy says? As a parent, should I be stopping my daughter from doing this?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was wanting to leave a comment, but I'm on the phone, writing an email and in the middle of an IM conversation right now. LOL

My initial thought is that I'm better at multi-tasking than what Kathy says I am, I'm the exception to that rule. But that's probably not true. She does say that as you get older, your brain is not as good at it.

My daughters are not teens yet, but they sure do follow my lead on a lot of things. I'm sure they watch me multi-task and pick up on that.

It's something I'm going to try to be more aware of.