Multitasking Effects On The Brain: Annotated Bibliography Essay

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Annotated Bibliography for “Multitasking and the Effect on the Brain” Prior to reading up on multitasking I had some prior knowledge about the topic and how it relates to the human brain. One issue that is often discussed when referring to multitasking is the degradation in quality of work as number of tasks increase. This issue is brought up nearly every time multitasking is ever mentioned. The focus of my project is the idea that one might be able to circumvent some of the problems normally associated with multitasking by training their brain to do so. The article “Training Improves Multitasking Performance by Increasing the Speed of Information Processing in Human Prefrontal Cortex” provides a large amount of evidence stating that this is in fact true. In addition, it is possible that in some situations, multitasking can provide more benefits than downfalls.
Another issue branching out from these is that of learning in current society which is heavily affected by multitasking, mostly in a negative way. An additional goal of mine is to determine whether multitasking is something completely necessary or too much of a detriment both classrooms and everyday life. The main negative trait associated with multitasking which is touched on in “Multitasking: Switching Costs” is that of the efficiency wasted when switching tasks.
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To support her claim she mentions attention deficit disorders which are rampant in children and adults alike in current society. The author also touches on the bad habits that multitasking causes creep in, which are especially detrimental to those still in school and attempting to learn and parse through massive amounts of new information. She breaks down the amount of attention one gives to a certain task into levels and based on these levels, can calculate how much they will retain after their first exposure to new

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