DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS: LEARNING IN MULTITASKING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

"Modern learning environment is filled with digital distractions. Distractions lead students to engage in multitasking, i.e., task-switching, during the teaching and learning process - to shift attention from learning content to non-course-related activities. Psychological research is mostly focused on examining the negative effects of multitasking in three areas: cognition and academic performance; health; and interpersonal relationships. This paper deals with the field of academic achievement - specifically the effects that digital distractions have on students and the learning process. An analysis of articles published in scientific journals in the last five years has been done. Articles were searched through the EBSCO Discovery Service, and the searched terms were ?multitasking?, ?digital distraction? and ?learning?, in the title, abstract and/or keywords. In order for the article to be included in the analysis, it was necessary for it to deal with the learning process at least in part. Thus, 11 articles that were the results of empirical studies and 4 review/theoretically oriented articles were selected. The results of empirical studies show that multitasking may reduce learners’ capacity for cognitive processing causing poor academic performance. Multitasking is more common in those media that provide instant emotional gratification, such as social media applications and sites. College instructors notice that digital distractions in the classroom negatively affect the teacher-student relationship, impair their job satisfaction, as well as the integrity of the classroom learning environment. Review studies, among other things, show that digital self-control interventions, which have been developed to alleviate the negative impact of digital distractions, are not effective enough. Banning the use of mobile devices in the classroom is not a good solution either, because banning the use of phones can encourage nomophobia, which will also negatively affect concentration and learning. For older students, banning the use of laptops leads to absenteeism from classes. What teachers can do is encourage students to write lecture notes by hand - in addition to making students more active, it has been confirmed that handwritten notes are more detailed than digital ones and lead to a more permanent recall. Technology breaks can also be effective in reducing multitasking: after a period of learning without multitasking, there is a break in which students can check text messages or social media."