Multitasking, Ritalin and online mindfulness

I have watched a documentary about 'our distracted brain'. I hardly dare to say it outloud but in between watching the documentary I was chatting on Skype, answering emails. Nevertheless I enjoyed it and it made me think about singletasking and focus. It is interesting that I still see myself as a very focussed person but I know my habits have changed a lot since I'm working a lot online. I really think that I can multitask at times and that this is very efficient. I will try to improve this by being more aware of when something needs my full attention. However, I am good in focussing I believe because I was always capable of studying with the radio on. When there is a party, I only know what the person I was talking to was saying and missed everything else in the room.

1. Multitasking only works for routine tasks 
A wonderful multitask exercise is to count from 1-10 outloud. Thereafter, say the alphabet from a-j. Then try to combine the two: A1, B2, C3, etc. You'll find that it takes very long to count in the last exercise because combining the two is more complex. With complex tasks, it is not efficient to multitask. Multitasking works especially if one of the tasks can be performed routinely. Therefore, many people think that they can drive and phone. This is also true in itself, however, driving and phone becomes problematic when the driving gets tough, then you should focus all attention on the road. There are many situations where multitasking is OK and can work smoothly, eg driving itself is multitasking - you have to worry about traffic, foot pedals, turning etc. Multitasking works only with more complex tasks if you are a supertasker. However, this is only a small group of people (2% of the population). Furthermore it is a pity, you can not train multitasking.

2. The influence of social media - we get more and more stimuli We now have to deal with much more media stimuli as before. The information that we can swallow (but not digest?) has grown tremendously. In social media, f you've been absent from Facebook or Twitter for a whole day you have the feeling that you are missing something, there are many new messages. You got to go to learn that it is never 'finished'. In the end you have to learn to balance between being distracted and concentrate and focus amidst all those stimuli. I have to say that I am really relaxed. I follow so many people on Twitter that I simply dip in when I have time. I never feel like reading all the messages.

3. How do you force yourself to single-task? With all the social media stimuli, it is much harder to force yourself to single-task. The single-tasking is more difficult nowadays because you have to turn off all distractions. People with lots of dopamine in their brains can concentrate well. The Ritalin / Concerta medicines prescribed for ADD-ers ensure that more dopamine is available in your frontal cortex so that you can focus better. The number of prescribed pills for ADD has lately tripled over the past five years. But other students are already sometimes taking Ritalin pills to study well. A survey of 1,500 students in the Netherlands indicates that approximately 2-3% does take the pills to improve their capacity to concentrate.

4. And if you want single-task without taking Ritalin? For those of us who want to improve single-tasking without Ritalin, there are other possibilities.

• Mindfulness training and meditation. These are forms to learn to shut your brain or part of your brain down. You learn to concentrate better. What you do with mindfulness is give your brains a rest.
• Turning all the stimuli in the form of bleeps, pop-ups etc. off. Turn off your phone, email notifications off. Use special programs like MacFreedom to block your internet if you can't control yourself and know yourself.. 
• Take control over your time back into your own hands. Through better planning you can focus better. Or use the pomodoro technique to concentrate. 
• Read from paper (this advice will not be a fun one for organizations that just introduced the paperless office :). The advantage of reading from paper read is that there is no distraction. You may choose to read a paper book or article so you can focus more easily. I sometimes go downstairs with a printed article to read as a sort of mental break in my work. 
• Unplug. Make sure you find a balance in your offline life. Go into a digital detox. Or like Clay Shirky- unplug your students while you are lecturing. 

5. Does our brain change as a result of all the media stimuli? Our brain is overloaded with daily whatsapp, emails and tweets. We get a lot of information and often we respond quickly. What does this do to us and with our brains? Does it changes our brain and will our children's ability to read a longer text suffer? "I am convinced that our brain is changing" said Roshan Cools in the documentary. Our brain is plastic, flexible. Think for example of what happens with addiction to drugs; as a result of heroin or cocaine entering our body, the brains change. The brains learn to cope with drugs. This demonstrates the plasticity of your brains of an individual. We adapt to our environment. Everything we learn is changing our brains. Whether and how this influences ithe brains of future generations is not yet known. It is likely that the brain adapts to the circumstances, but it is quite possible that the brain will become better at focussing among all those messages.

6. Let's not ignore the art of dialogue .. Sherry Turkle is wrestling with the same questions. She is a psychologist and excited about the potential of social media in the hope that it helps us advance in learning about our online identity. At the same time she warns in her TED talk for short messages and the effect on our communication. She is excited about the new opportunities, but they also see the bizarre appeal of smartphones. People go online during a meeting but also during funerals. Parents send mails during breakfast. She warns of the effect on our way of reflecting. She calls it the 'goldilocks' effect. We communicate mainly in small, short messages via SMS, tweets, facebook and LinkedIn status updates. If we are not careful we are losing the art of conversation and really engage in dialogue. If we loose the art of dialogue forever we are not on the right track.

The dangers of social media for youth

The high school of my daughter organised a meeting about "internet and social media". As you might guess it was focused on the dangers.. "The potential hazards are discussed and the possibilities to take measures to enhance safety .." It was very funny to hear someone do the opposite of what I do: I'm trying to enthuse people about professional use of social media and Donny Gieskens of the 'stichting veilig online' (Foundation internet safety) is raising awareness about the dangers of Internet and social media .. and he did make his point! Especially with his presentation with the blonde girl on his webcam who turned out to be an old man:). There are a lot of technical possibilities to create innovative online communities, but also for people with bad intentions.

I wanted to make notes for this blog post but thought a laptop would look kind of weird. And there was no wifi so live-blogging was not even an option. Eventually I brought an iPad for notes and I was the only one. Finally I did not dare to take pictures because it is forbidden by school protocol!.

Though I pity the fact that social media are usually approached from the danger side by parents, it felt useful to have a look at side of social media to which I usually don't pay a lot of attention. I might give it a clearer space within my own work.

Some facts

First some facts and figures for 12-16 year olds in the Netherlands

• What does a typical teenager do on the internet? Main use is YouTube (videos), MSN messenger (chat), browsing (surfing), social media (contacts and new contacts), Word (word processing) and games (gaming)
• 87% had a bad experience through the internet.
  
• 1 in 4 boys aged 12-16 engages in cybersex
• 2 out of 10 have met someone in real life they met through the Internet (but so do I!)
• 1 in 100 parents think their child has been involved in cyberbullying
• However, 40 out of 100 teenagers has really engaged in cyberbullying
• 12-16 year olds play on average 1 hour day games
• There are already 5.9 million years played in the game World of Warcraft
• On average, a 21 year old has gamed for 10,000 hours
  

The dangers

1. Information sharing

Importantly, a lot of information is shared by children, which the parents don't want to be shared, such as holiday dates (burglars are actively using the internet for information too!). The caches of search engines will all be kept for five years, what teenagers do not always realize. So when you share a picture when you are 16, this picture may still be found on the net when you apply for a job at 21. The privacy settings on social networking sites (like MySpace and Facebook) are not always set consciously to visible for friends only. Moreover Twitter has a public account by default, what teenagers may not realize. Youngsters do not always realize what their settings are and whether their information is public or visible only to friends. Also with links between network sites like Twitter and Facebook privacy settings can be overwritten. On a positive note: companies like MySpace and Facebook may sell user statistics, but not the individual information, because it is protected by the (dutch) law on personal data.

Some tips on sharing information are: Use a nickname (not your own name and not sexygirl15). This is an opinion contrary to my advice in building a professional identity however ... And ensure good privacy settings: have a look at them together.

2. Cyberbullying

Bullying can be done by acquaintances or strangers (anonymous).

Tips: Keep all threatening or bullying emails. Every Internet connection has its own IP address, and is recognizable. In a chat program you can block unwanted people, chat programs are required to provide this function. If bullying comes from a public computer, eg library, there are many cameras that have registered who have made use of this computer, so the anonymous persons are traceable.

3. Phishing

Phishing is social engineering by imitating emails individuals are trying to extort information. If you give someone your password voluntarily and they abuse is by posting on your behalf or using your credit card it is still a crime (contrary to popular belief). Your password is yours alone. This is a legal offense.

Phishing Tips: Change your password every 70 days, using 5 digits 2 3 Unicode characters. A good free virus program is AVG.com. Do not forget to log out when you leave a computer. Automatic locking may also help.

4. Gaming

Gaming is also positive for the development of language, manners and communication. Unfortunately, 3 out of 10 parents buy games for 18 + for children under 18. 6 out of 10 parents have no control over the types of games that teenagers play.

Tip: Know what they play! Do not buy 18 + games for under 18.

5. Sexual Abuse

Especially for girls a modeling offer may be tempting, and it comes with the instruction not to consult with the parents. Also, blackmail and threats occur. He showed a convincing example of a man who posed as webcam blonde girl. So you think you are talking to a nice girl, but in fact it is someone else.

Tips: If you suspect abuse attempts: contact the site administrator. In case of concrete evidence: File a report with the police. Webcam only with people you know in real life. To check authenticity of the webcam image: ask to raise a hand. Cover the webcam with a cloth so the webcam can not film from a distance without you noticing.

Some general tips for parents:
Talk to teens about online behavior and provide parental control and agree on time limits, etc., after school, not directly behind your computer, check age limit games, talk about experiences, learning a critical attitude. Write an Internet protocol and let the teenager sign.

I'm a little double about this focus on the dangers. It is useful to me, because it is my invisible spot. On the other hand, you could have a much wider and interesting debate about social media, socially-constructed learning and learning within the curriculum..