The Negative Effects Of Digital Multitasking And Academic Performance

It is common to notice that the internet has rewired our brain into multitasking much more than before. However, it was concluded after numerous studies that this kind of digital multitasking does not make us smarter or more swift in our activities, but quite on the contrary negatively impacts our academic performance. A more scientific aspect of why our brain is affected by the large sea of information that is available to us is touched upon by Eric Jaffe. The writer explains that “the barrage of new media distractions is placing new demands on cognitive processing, and especially on attention allocation […] While cause-and-effect is difficult to parse here, in some sense it doesn’t matter. If all this digital media is causing people to multi-task

Cognition is affected by multitasking by the multiple distractions at once, and the internet only makes this exponentially worse with texting, messaging or emailing applications, and social medias such as Facebook, twitter, or Snapchat among the many. Deeper learning is prevented from such distractions. Therefore, these two authors deduct from their studies that our brains capacities suffer from the increasing multitasking. Unfortunately, this inflation in multitasking affects concentration and reflection in a negative way ultimately upsetting academic performance. Thereupon, the internet is negatively impacting our brain and our capacity to study because of the unsubstantial distraction that it

First, through the fact that it transforms our intellect to be horizontal to the detriment of deeper understanding. Since a limitless library of resources is open to us always, we tend to skim through information, not taking the time to think and discuss the information inwardly for it to truly enhance our knowledge. The internet is also affect our communication the same way as our intellect, by making it lateral and only offering snippets of contact through texting apps and social medias. This prevents us from learning about and from each other through deep connections. Furthermore, the web also impacts our memory as we take for granted the easy access to information, making search engines our personal transactive memories. This as the indirect effect of inflating our self-estimate of knowledge, although the information is not physically in stored in our brain. Lastly, the internet through social medias and applications pushes towards more insubstantial multitasking which affect our brain’s capacity to think and study properly, ultimately affecting our academic performance. These impacts of the internet can be seen in my personal life through self-reflection. As I spend more and more time on my phone reading multiple web articles, I do not take the time to truly read a book anymore. Multitasking also impacts me in writing this essay as I just received a text