LAUREN MORTON-FARMER
Staff Writer
If nothing else, students are all guilty of one thing: multi-tasking. Few students sit down at their computer to write a paper without listening to music, talking to friends online, e-mailing or forwarding to the next song on their iPod.
As college students, it has become almost necessary to master the art of multi-tasking. But there are newly released studies showing that though students feel more productive by getting more done in less time, they may be doing themselves a disservice. According to David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, in a recent Time article, “habitual multi-tasking may condition [the] brain to an overexcited state, making it difficult to focus even when [we] want to.”
Sophomore Brigette Olmos-Arreola is all too familiar with multi-tasking
“I’ll be studying and talking online, or will be talking on the phone and watching a movie,” she said. “I spend so much time multi-tasking and trying to get other stuff done that it takes just as long. Sometimes I get sidetracked and have to stay up longer to get homework done.”
Creative Writing professor Courtenay Stallings has a unique perspective when it comes to the pros and cons of multi-tasking in college. She not only works full time, but she is a graduate student as well as the adviser for the Expressionists Literary Magazine.
“I have a really strong work ethic which, in turn, forces me to place a lot of pressure on myself to get things done,” she said. “The problem is that I choose to over-extend myself. So the problem lies within.”
Stallings knows sees its effects in their work.
“There is so much pressure on students to excel academically and socially that they are spread thin,” Stallings said. “Multi-tasking, ideally, should be done in moderation with moments of quiet and rest and focus for sanity’s sake.”
Many students do it simply because there is no other option when it comes to getting things done. Still, there are some like sophomore Stevie Seibert doesn’t think so.
“It’s not that my multi-tasking really accomplished anything,” she said. “I just happen to be doing more than one thing. It’s not necessary, just the nature of the beast.”
Danny Campbell, a theater professor who has been balancing teaching with directing Pepperdine’s recent production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” also knows a thing or two about multi-tasking.
“I don’t fully concentrate on [either] of the two things I’m doing,” he said. “[Multi-tasking is] culturally ingrained, but necessary? I don’t know.”
So the battle wages on, do you multi-task or take it one step at a time? Max Kelemen could be swayed either way.
“Being able to do several things at once can be important but I am more productive when I just focus on one thing,” he said.
04-13-2006