Multitasking has become a skill necessary for survival in academia. Heck, it’s become necessary to survive period. There are just too many diversions to invest our attention in. To succeed (or attempt to) in all our endeavors, we end up dividing our efforts amongst the variety of activities that need attention. Sometimes I wish I could just sit there and 100% focus on that one thing. It seems yoga is the only time I’m able to zone out and just focus on the “here and now”.

LikeLike

I also enjoyed the references you provided. In today’s day and age, our students are involved in so many things that it’s almost inevitable they will multitask during class. Heck, I know I do. I’m so busy that I try to maximize my time by multitasking. I’ll admit, I’m not always super engaged in one activity with my attention is being divided between several tasks. The same is true for our students. Honestly, I believe it’s their job to manage their multitasking and whatever attention it demands. If they are happen to not be engaged in class or the learning environment I work to create, then that’s their loss.

Thank you for your reflection. I am so like the emotional part of a learning process. It reminds me how excited I and my classmates were when we were assigned a math problem and competed to see who got the right answer first. Since the college time, the joy part of learning has tried to avoid me.

I really like your story! You are correct that the tools that are available to use make us think differently. I have a story similar to yours. I used to cook steaks in Teflon pans, but I never really got a nice sear on a steak as a cast iron pan or a grill. After a bit of investigating I discovered what sear actually does, and fundamentally mimic the different variables that are needed to get a good sear on the meat. In relation to how the internet affect the way that we think, we have to understand the underlying cause and effect of each situation. Once we have those understand we can utilize each tools to the full advantage. The ways that we use the tools changes the way that we think.

Thank you for sharing your story, Iris! I could resonate with both lines that you shared – the differences we detect in our food and what Google has done for the way we now find and consume information. I too have been frustrated by my inability to truly capture the tastes from home, and one reason is that I think I could not control how an electric stove would heat what I was cooking at various stages of preparation the way I could when I cooked with flame from a gas burner. In the same way, Google has provided pros and cons to the information search and consumption process; we now have access to more information, but it can now be difficult to really do a deep dive on everything that we find.

I really like the idea of focusing on a topic is a skill these days. I notice that many times when I am working on the computer, emails, web browsing, etc. can easily distract me. I do have to agree that if you learn to focus, technology can greatly increase your productivity. For example, if you are reading a paper and you do not understand something, you can do a quick web search to investigate more. The main challenge is staying focus, as you have mentioned.

LikeLike

Reading your excellent post makes me sad because you are absolutely right. The need to multitask in academic life and carry ever larger burdens of work to the point where sleep becomes a luxury also means that our work will tend to be more shallow. I have two kinds of work that cannot be shallow, and to my dismay, I have little time for either.

One kind of work is being present for students. Just making myself available. Instead, I will spend my office hours on email, writing quiz questions, or producing documents, and hope that nobody will stop by because I’m too busy! This is the opposite of what needs to happen.

The other kind of work that requires deep presence is grading. No multitasking here! It takes time to do a thoughtful, thorough, and consistent job. Without the luxury of large chunks of time to focus on grading, I often think that I would get more “work” done if I just stayed home. (Except I would not be present for students!) Sigh. Rather than just take my attention away from work 1 and work 2, electronic distractions need to be harnessed to somehow do “shallow” work for me so I’ll have time for deep work.

LikeLike