Insights into multitasking

We all know that one of the hallmarks of being a digital native (aka teenager) is skill at multitasking. That has concerned some parents and educators. Well, new research published by the National Academy of Sciences may be providing some cause for concern – or at least insights. The study "shows distractions affect the way people learn, making the knowledge they gain harder to use later," the Associated Press reports. It's about two kinds of learning: declarative (which comes with full attention, which allows memorization) and habit (coming from doing a task thousands of times). The latter isn't as useful and flexible because it requires the same conditions. Like punching a number into a phone 100 times, you have to be using a phone to recall the number. UCLA psychology professor Russell Poldrack "said the problem is that the two types of learning seem to compete with each other, and when someone is distracted, habit learning seems to take over from declarative learning." One could draw from that, the article suggests, that multitasking promotes habit learning.