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24/7 Lecture: Multitasking against academic performance and SMD

Posted on Monday, April 13, 2020 by for 24/7 Lecture.

Cartoon zombie pursuing a cell phone

24 seconds: When it comes to multitasking, the use of social media is increasing among adolescents. The reliance on social media causes adolescents to experience more online activity, leading to social media addiction known as Social Media Disorder (SMD). Frequent media multitasking is disadvantageous on adolescents' academic performance. It has shown to be continuously distracting since the individual's attention is on the media while performing the academic task, causing frequent switching between the primary task and the media. Ultimately, this constant switching results in poor performance and hinders cognitive memory. When adolescents often participate in media multitasking, they become habitual to the continuous shift between the media and non-media related activities at hand and eventually deprive their ability to concentrate. The correlation between the motivations for media use among adolescents, and the development of addiction raises concerns on its impact on how they go about their daily activities.

7 Words: Do your homework, you social media zombie!

Kelly Guan (Class of 2020)