In today’s society, multi-tasking is taking over. People multi-task every day whether it’s talking on the phone while driving or simply watching television while being on the internet. However, studies have been conducted to show that multi-tasking is impossible. You can’t fully focus on more than one thing at one time. When you are trying to do multiple things at once you are splitting your mind and dividing up your attention. People become less efficient and are make unnecessary errors. It is not advised to study information while having distractions. It takes full focus and dedication to learn a new concept. One part of focusing is having the ability to not get distracted. That is why it is advised to study alone in a quiet area. According to researcher Michael Posner, there are three parts to attention: alerting, orienting, and executive. Alerting is the amount of attention you are asserting to information. Orienting is our response to information. Executive is the part we have conscious control over. This is important because then you can choose where to focus your attention.
Our attention is being tested in all aspects of life. We all suffer from not being able to focus all of our attention onto one thing. Even at work, the boss has you doing a million different things. It is easy to forget something you have to do even if you have been planning it for months because our minds are being stretched to the limit. I think it is vital for people to make “To-Do Lists” in order to make sure they accomplish everything they need too. It will also help them to sort out their time so when studying needs to be done, they have allotted a certain amount of time to fully focus on their studies.