Richard Cytowic at The MIT Press Reader:
Watching television while using another smart device is so common that over 60 percent of U.S. adults regularly engage in “media multitasking.” Compared to controls, media multitaskers have more trouble maintaining attention and a propensity to forget; their anterior cingulate cortex (a brain structure involved in directing attention) is physically smaller than controls’. Another study found that the more minutes children engaged in screen multitasking at age 18 months, the worse their preschool cognition and the more behavioral problems they exhibited at four and six years. The authors advise positive parenting and avoidance of media screen multitasking before the age of two.
The challenges of multitasking are especially acute in fields like medicine, where attention to detail can mean the difference between life and death. A powerful example comes from a training session with George Washington University medical students in which we scrutinize an incident that reportedly occurred at another well-known teaching hospital.
More here.
Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now.