that using one’s memory often will make it easier to recall information because the plastic brain will develop new ways of remembering. In contrast, knowing that that information is easily accessible through a search engine will cause peoples’ memory and deep thinking abilities to weaken. Multitasking is another way the Internet is decreasing individual’s cognitive skills because it is lessening their problem solving skills and their ability to learn and remember knowledge. Neural plasticity causes the brain to adjust during multitasking situations which makes deep thinking difficult to achieve. Alina Tugend, author and award-winning New York columnist, discusses the effects that multitasking can have in her essay Can Times “Multitasking Make You Lose... Um Focus.” Tugend expresses the idea that multitasking is making people … less efficient and more stressed rather than actually saving time. Tugend says, is “Multitasking shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we’re simultaneously tasking, but we’re really not. It’s like playing tennis with three balls” (Tugend). Tugend is saying that if a person were to play tennis with three balls, they could not actually watch all three balls at the same time. In reality, the person would be constantly switching their attention and focusing on one specific ball. This is what people are doing when they multitask. They are not focusing fully on both tasks that they are undertaking, whether they believe they are or not. The question is whether this is actually a bad thing and if it affects performance. Psychologists at the University of California did an experiment to see if multitasking impairs learning. The experiment involved participants carrying out a single task in which they predicted the weather based on clues they were given. The researchers scanned the participants’ brains as they made these predications and found that they were activating regions of the brain that allow people to apply knowledge to other situations later. The next experiment was similar, except the
that using one’s memory often will make it easier to recall information because the plastic brain will develop new ways of remembering. In contrast, knowing that that information is easily accessible through a search engine will cause peoples’ memory and deep thinking abilities to weaken. Multitasking is another way the Internet is decreasing individual’s cognitive skills because it is lessening their problem solving skills and their ability to learn and remember knowledge. Neural plasticity causes the brain to adjust during multitasking situations which makes deep thinking difficult to achieve. Alina Tugend, author and award-winning New York Times columnist, discusses the effects that multitasking can have in her essay “Multitasking Can Make You Lose... Um … Focus.” Tugend expresses the idea that multitasking is making people less efficient and more stressed rather than actually saving time. Tugend says, “Multitasking is shifting focus from one task to another in rapid succession. It gives the illusion that we’re simultaneously tasking, but we’re really not. It’s like playing tennis with three balls” (Tugend). Tugend is saying that if a person were to play tennis with three balls, they could not actually watch all three balls at the same time. In reality, the person would be constantly switching their attention and focusing on one specific ball. This is what people are doing when they multitask. They are not focusing fully on both tasks that they are undertaking, whether they believe they are or not. The question is whether this is actually a bad thing and if it affects performance. Psychologists at the University of California did an experiment to see if multitasking impairs learning. The experiment involved participants carrying out a single task in which they predicted the weather based on clues they were given. The researchers scanned the participants’ brains as they made these predications and found that they were activating regions of the brain that allow people to apply knowledge to other situations later. The next experiment was similar, except the