SWA # 2

1.       This means that because our brains are constantly changing and making new connections, our brain is adapting to try and work better with technology and multitasking.  The adaptation in itself is extremely useful and has helped humans evolve to what we are today, we have just not evolved enough to be able to analyze and sort out such vast amounts of information in my opinion.  According to some studies done at Stanford, multitaskers have more difficultly straining out irrelevant information and often had trouble focusing (17-18).  However, according to Adam Gazzaley “We are exposing our brains to an environment and asking them to do things we weren’t necessarily evolved to do” (16).

2.       Richtel uses the Campbell family as an everyday example of a typical American family.  Most people would agree at some point or other they have dealt with the same issues to varying degrees.  Even in college I can see that many people have technology intertwined into their lives and find it hard to get away with being completely turned off for more than a couple hours.  We have to constantly keep checking our emails, blackboard accounts and other various web pages just to stay on top of homework assignments and organizations.  In my family I have noticed we find it hard to “unplug” ourselves from the electronics centered world. 

3.       The “myth of multitasking” is that only 3 percent of the population is actually capable of easily juggling multiple streams of information.  People who generally say they are good multitaskers have trouble focusing and struggling filtering out irrelevant information (18).  People who were often interrupted by emails or text messages were prone to more stress and the stress hormone has been shown to reduce short term memory capacity.  This definitely changes my thinking about multitasking because I always used to think that when I was multitasking I was accomplishing so much more than I normally would if I focused on just one task.  However looking back now I realize that the quality of my work or interactions with people weren’t as high as they would have been had I focus on that task at the time.