textarea | I think that the costs do outweigh the potential benefits. Although someone with high media use can be better at multitasking, this one benefit does not outweigh the potential costs of shorter attention spans and other detrimental aspects. Multitasking can be helpful in some cases, but it is extremely beneficial to sometimes focus on one thing, allowing yourself to contribute your full, undivided attention. With the media multitasking lifestyle, one loses the ability to do this completely, thus making it clear that the costs are worse than the benefits.  | name | Tucker Meijer | Submit_button_x | 0 | Submit_button_y | 0 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | There seems to be little evidence for the benefits and a lot of evidence for the costs so far. As far as the literature is concerned, multitasking seems to be associated mostly with costs like reduced recognition, and reduced cognitive performance. This study gives evidence that a multitasking lifestyle might be associated with better multisensory integration. That means that we might be able to to better process various types of stimuli. While that might be useful in certain contexts, I think that the loss of attention, and cognitive performance that happens during multitasking to too great a cost, and the increased ability to sense diverse stimuli at once does not make up for it. We need to be able to focus selectively on tasks at hand so that we can give them our full mental effort to get the best results | name | Rakin Muhtadi | Submit_button_x | 41 | Submit_button_y | 10 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Participants who were heavy media users exhibited a decrease in the ability to be able to focus on the material relevant to task. However, the experiments did display that the same heavy users were more adept at multi sensory integration. This benefit outweighs the costs in this case. If actually true, the evolutionary benefits of having an elevated multi sensory integration would be huge in real- life scenarios. For example, in reality there are more than just one or two stimuli like a lab setting. To be able to pick out unwarranted and potentially threatening stimuli at ease would be a huge help. | name | Advaita Rao- Sharma | Submit_button_x | 33 | Submit_button_y | 20 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Participants who were heavy media users exhibited a decrease in the ability to be able to focus on the material relevant to task. However, the experiments did display that the same heavy users were more adept at multi sensory integration. This benefit outweighs the costs in this case. If actually true, the evolutionary benefits of having an elevated multi sensory integration would be huge in real- life scenarios. For example, in reality there are more than just one or two stimuli like a lab setting. To be able to pick out unwarranted and potentially threatening stimuli at ease would be a huge help. | name | Advaita Rao- Sharma | Submit_button_x | 13 | Submit_button_y | 22 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I think the benefits outweigh the costs of using multimedia. While attention isn't as focussed on each activity when multitasking, the benefits of the vast amount of information from each multimedia source is much more important. Although multitasking is more efficient the use of media when multitasking can also benefit the participant. As they said in the discussion section, multitasking is different among different medias. Many of these medias such as listening to music while writing an essay can actually help the student and may be beneficial with coming up with ideas when writing the paper.  | name | Geralyn Lam | Submit_button_x | 19 | Submit_button_y | 11 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I think that the benefits far outweigh the costs. While it is true that the media multitasking lifestyle is a somewhat recent phenomenon, the rise of technology makes this switch almost necessary. The fact that new advances and innovations bombard people with easily-accessed information and forms of entertainment means that people need to develop the skills to process all of these things simultaneously. These skills will also transfer to other areas of life, such as job, school, and home life. In each of these areas people are burdened with various, often overwhelming responsibilities and deadlines. Being able to multitask then becomes an invaluable skill in the context of the high-paced modern society. In my opinion, these advantages outweigh the loss of being able to focus on a single task more carefully, as situations more commonly seem to call for multitasking than that singular focus. | name | Yariana Diaz | Submit_button_x | 32 | Submit_button_y | 20 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The costs of this "media multitasking lifestyle" outweigh the benefits in my personal opinion. Although heavy media multitaskers may be better at quickly absorbing and reacting to peripheral stimuli, they lack focus and accuracy on the main task at hand. Furthermore, it seems that only under particular conditions can they be able to perform well - such as the presence of the tone at each target color change. When an immediate association can be made with the stimuli and the task, they produce accurate results; however when that stimuli is taken away, that accuracy greatly reduces. The picky and particular nature in which the media multitasking lifestyle must operate in in order for good performance in tasks that I personally would have to undertake, such as studying, would outweigh the benefit of doing well if those conditions were met.  | name | Kelly Kim | Submit_button_x | 29 | Submit_button_y | 15 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | This paper highlights that being a multitasker improves multisensory integration. Considering the costs and benefits of a media multitasking lifestyle, I don’t think it’s worth the cost. The ability to perform better when processing multiple stimuli is beneficial for many jobs and lifestyles where this ability is needed. I don’t think it’s worth negation of one’s performance during a controlled single stimuli environment. It might be beneficial to study for an exam while listening to classical music, however since you cannot listen to that music during the exam, you lose out on the state-dependent improvement in performance.  | name | Benaias Esayeas  | Submit_button_x | 13 | Submit_button_y | 17 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | It seems that there is a correlation with the media multitasking lifestyle and a better performance on the multitasking test in the presence of an unrelated signal. The researchers suggested that multitaskers may be more sensitive to something like their cell phone ringing than light multi-taskers. However, in the scheme of things, heavy multitaskers have poorer performances overall and so I feel like this mild benefit to multitasking does not outweigh the costs of overall decreased performance. | name | Eugene Lee | Submit_button_x | 20 | Submit_button_y | 15 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I would say that, given today's current society, the benefits of the 'media multitasking lifestyle' do outweigh the costs. Although this multitasking may harm other cognitive abilities, the benefits are extremely relevant to today's society, and they are worth the costs.  | name | Marah Brubaker | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 21 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I believe that the benefits of a media multitasking lifestyle include being able to be more aware of one's surroundings, especially in real life where we might be receiving information from various sources. For example, while driving a person has to be aware of his speed, the cars around him, the traffic lights, etc. we might be more likely to hear our name called while having a focused conversation with someone.

Although a "media multitasking lifestyle" appears to have the benefit of being able to day, drive and text at the same time without any consequences, I feel that a number of other factors play into this divided attention phenomenon. For example, holding a phone by itself makes it harder for a driver to have both hands on the wheel and maneuver easier. additionally, with the frequency of which some people use media multitasking (the average teen receiving information from almost 4 sources), people become less able to focus on a single stimulus. The basic advice given to anyone is to not text and drive because this can cause them to get in an accident. I believe this occurs because when one is driving, our surroundings are changing and we do not know what to expect next; a car could speed around us or the car in front could come to an abrupt halt. however, people tend to use media multitasking when they are stationary and the environment around them is not changing. 

I also believe that we do not evenly divide our attention between different tasks. if we are sending a text, we are more focused on spelling everything correctly than what's changing on the road. For these reasons,  I would say that a media multitasking lifestyle allows for cognitive improvement in an unchanging environment presenting with no real danger. however, in a situation like a drive on the highway, moving your attention from the road, where you cannot guess what you would encounter next, dividing one's attention might in fact be very dangerous. 

The costs do not outweight the benefits, since the real world could present with more than 4 stimuli to focus on. | name | Gustavo Marino | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | Submit_button_x | 30 | Submit_button_y | 16 | 
textarea | In my opinion, the costs of the 'media multitasking lifestyle' do not outweigh the benefits. While Lui & Wong (2012) explore the idea that it may be beneficial, I believe that multitasking with media/social media is detrimental to a person's ability to effectively budget his/her time. Time management is critical in being able to effectively get something, while also doing so in a timely fashion. Although Lui & Wong (2012) did seem to find evidence that heavy media multi-taskers were quicker and more accurate when a noise was present in comparison to the light media multi-taskers, I believe that it is better to be quicker and more accurate when no sound is present (light media multi-taskers were to do better without sound in comparison to heavy).  | name | Connor Sheehan  | Submit_button_x | 35 | Submit_button_y | 19 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The findings in this paper show that heavy media multitaskers perform worse in general cognitive tasks but better in tasks in which multisensory information is present. The costs are obviously that working memory, selective attention, task switching are impaired by a heavy multimedia lifestyle, as proven in many studies according to Lui and Wong. While, the benefits are that a more breadth-biased style of cognitive control is associated with heavy multimedia lifestyles that allows for better performance in more real-life scenarios in which and unexpected stimulus presents itself and attention is drawn to it. In my opinion, the costs outweigh the benefits. Having the ability to direct attention to stimuli that are not associated with the task at hand may be beneficial in certain circumstances, however I think that most of the time these stimuli are detrimental and divert attention away from more important information. Having better cognitive control while devoting attention to and performing a single task that is important is much more useful than having the ability to pick up various stimuli that may not be as important the majority of the time.  | name | Jeff Anderson | Submit_button_x | 24 | Submit_button_y | 15 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | As described in this paper, the benefits of multitasking seem to outweigh the costs. It is true that ‘breadth-biased cognitive control’ (i.e. simultaneously consuming information from multiple media) decreases one’s ability to distinguish between important information and distractors, therefore possibly weakening the ability to focus on information relevant to the task at hand. However, in the real world, unexpected environmental stimuli may be the ones carrying important information, e.g. a media multi-tasker reading a book will be more likely to detect the ping of an SMS tone in the background. While this may not seem directly relevant to the task of reading, it could be that the incoming message carries some important information in itself. In today’s world, where the younger generations are almost always bombarded by multiple forms of media, e.g. emails from their professors and Web-surfing for a research project, this ability could therefore serve them well in picking up on all sorts of environmental cues instead of single-mindedly focusing on one particular task.
 | name | Alizeh Sethi  | Submit_button_x | 41 | Submit_button_y | 9 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | According to the paper, heavy media multitasking has been linked to poor performance in certain cognitive tasks such as task switching, selective attention, and working memory. However, Lui and Wong ran an experiment which showed that heavy media multitaskers tended to be better at multisensory integration (as measured by participants' ability to ignore distractions and pay attention to the orientation of a target line). Personally, I think the costs outweigh the benefits of a "media multitasking lifestyle", since task switching, selective attention, and working memory seem more useful than multisensory integration. In my opinion, it is easier to limit the amount of sensory information you are receiving in most contexts (by going someplace quiet, for example) than it is to avoid or improve task switching, selective attention, or working memory. In addition, Lui and Wong's study is not as realistic or directly applicable to life as some of the other studies mentioned in the introduction which discouraged media multitasking are; the evidence discouraging media multitasking appears more convincing than the limited evidence supporting it. I think it is also important to note that the correlation mentioned in the article between media use/ media multitasking and grade point average does not mean that media multitasking causes people to do worse in school;  both variables could be the direct result of the amount of time spent on schoolwork (people who spend more time on school work have less time to spend on the internet.) I would imagine that there are several such confounding variables in many attention studies.  | name | Maggie Shea | Submit_button_x | 24 | Submit_button_y | 17 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea |      Though the paper is optimistic about the increased multisensory integration in heavy media multitaskers, as evinced by the title “Does media multitasking always hurt? A positive correlation between multitasking and multisensory integration,” it isn’t a resounding victory. Heavy media multitaskers had more difficulty detecting the line fragment amidst its distractors than their lighter media use peers, and only performed compartively better than their peers when the pip-and-pop paradigm was present. As mentioned in the article’s discussion section, the study focused on a multisensory experience “where one...does not expect or even know of the utility of information coming from another channel,” and showed that heavy multitaskers had a stronger multisensory integration effect, but it is often the case outside the lab that the multisensory information a person is receiving from different channels doesn’t correlate so neatly (653); for example, being more attuned to the sounds from a room next to yours during an exam isn’t usually beneficial. 
	Combine the weakness of the article’s supposed benefit with the background information provided in its introduction that shows heavy media multitaskers perform “poorly in certain cognitive tasks including task switching, selective attention, and working memory,” and it seems that the long-term cognitive costs of a “media multitasking lifestyle” outweigh the benefits (647). However, the expectations of the modern world in many ways promote a media multitasking lifestyle, and being able to recognize and rapidly respond to communication by recognizing email notifications while working with other media is probably a valued skill in many workplaces. If multimedia interaction is what is expected in society, than the small cognitive costs on other tasks (of dubious ecological validity) may be worth it.
 | name | Katerina von Campe | Submit_button_x | 27 | Submit_button_y | 22 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The costs of the 'media multitasking lifestyle' as described in this paper outweighs the benefits. There is a significant reduction in the reaction time of heavy multitaskers for the tone-absent trial when compared to light multitaskers. And for the tone present trial, both the light and the heavy multitaskers have relatively comparable reaction times with the heavy multitaskers having a slightly faster reaction time. Hence, the costs of multitasking outweighs its benefits. | name | Alifayaz Abdulzahir | Submit_button_x | 28 | Submit_button_y | 8 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | In context of this study, the benefits of media multitasking could be construed as an increased ability to make sense of the signal amongst increasing noise, while the downside that when there's less noise, you're less likely to find the signal. Considering life often has numerous variables hurtling towards you, the media multitasking lifestyle could be a good thing, considering it seems to allow a person to figure out what is most important as other variables are in constant flux. When you also consider how many jobs are transitioning more and more towards the internet, the media multitasking lifestyle may have serious merit.  | name | Brent Harrison | Submit_button_x | 20 | Submit_button_y | 12 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | In terms of the effects of media multitasking on cognititve abilities, it is pretty clear that the costs of multitasking outweigh the benefits. The opening lines of the study explain that multitasking has been shown to limit task-switching, selective attention, and working memory, and it only appears to lend a marginal advantage in multi sensory integration. The human cognitive structure has evolved to maximize the ability to focus in on what is important, and ignore irrelevant information. The 'multi sensory integration' that the study shows to be enhanced is an undoing of evolution's work, and limits one of the most important cognitive functions.  | name | Jack Malague | Submit_button_x | 24 | Submit_button_y | 9 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The main benefit of the "media multitasking lifestyle" put forth by Lui and Wong is that it can improve multisensory integration. The main cost is that it leads to decreased performance on many focused cognitive tasks. Personally, I feel that the costs of the "media multitasking lifestyle" far outweigh the benefits. The authors showed that media multitaskers were better able to use important multisensory info, but in real life none of the stuff that the media multitaskers divert their attention to is really important. There isn't (hardly) ever useful/important information on facebook, twitter, instagram, snapchat, etc.  | name | Matthew Bonomo | Submit_button_x | 32 | Submit_button_y | 21 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | According to this paper, having media multi-tasking can actually be a positive thing. While heavy media users may not measure up to standard when trying to focus on one single thing, cognition improves generously when there are lots of distractions. This paper argues that this is more important since outside of the laboratory, in real-world scenarios rarely are you given the chance to focus completely on one thing, you constantly have to deal with distractions. This is where the media multitasking lifestyle actually develops into a good skill. | name | Mae Cromwell | Submit_button_x | 29 | Submit_button_y | 7 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I believe that the costs of the media multitasking lifestyle outweigh the benefits. This is because although heavy multitasks are better at gathering information from unexpected stimuli, this skill isn't as important as being able to focus on the task at hand. For example, younger people who use cell phones while driving are still killed despite the possibility of them being able to notice unexpected stimuli. If the benefits of multitasking actually did outweigh the costs, then much less people would be dying from activities like using cell phones while driving. | name | Shaunpaul Jones | Submit_button_x | 21 | Submit_button_y | 20 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The costs of “media multitasking” can be seen in the results of the visual search task in the absence of a tone. Heavy multitaskers had in average, a harder time to recognize the change of color in the presented display of line segments. This means that they have a harder time, and overall lower efficiency in focusing on and deeply comprehending a task presented to them. This obviously causes detrimental impairments on the younger generations’-all of us as heavy media multitaskers- analytical capabilities. However, looking at attention and comprehension from an evolutionary perspective, we see that most of the dangers facing us happen to come in unexpected situations from different mediums. The second half of the experiment has shown us that heavy multitaskers were better in audio-present condition. This implies that while losing our ability to focus deeply, we as younger generations gain the ability to assess every stimulus presented to us, which is called breadth bias. This certainly benefits us, not just in dangerous situations, but in any realistic case in which the relevant information to our motives comes in unexpected and various secondary sources. I personally believe the benefits outweigh the costs, as we are also able to deeply focus on tasks requiring our attention combining visual, audible and etc. mediums-such as video games. | name | Yagmur Idil Ozdemir | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 8 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | It is difficult to weigh the costs and benefits of a ‘media multitasking lifestyle’ because depending on the situation, media multitaskers may perform better or worse on cognitive tasks compared to non-multitaskers. For example, research has supported the idea that heavy media multitaskers have a “breadth-based bias control” that allows them to consume information from multiple sources at once. However, this weakens their ability to focus on information relevant to the task at hand. Yet media multitasking is not completely detrimental to cognition. In the experiment conducted by Lui and Wong, it was found that high media multitasking was correlated with better multisensory integration. The key to evaluating whether the costs outweigh the benefits of media multitasking is to understand which situations are more plausible in the real world, while also looking at the big picture. For example, unexpected stimuli may carry important information, and that this information may be better captured by those who can receive information from multiple sources at once. Although in this instance, the ability to integrate unexpected stimuli may be beneficial, the costs to this type of behavior outweigh the benefits because it does not only affect cognition – it also has deeper implications on a social and emotional level. Moreover, the impairment in focusing on information relevant to a task has severe consequences. In school and work environments, where task completion is key, such impairments can be extremely detrimental. From this, it is evident that the costs of a media multitasking lifestyle clearly outweigh the benefits. | name | Hope Kim | Submit_button_x | 31 | Submit_button_y | 12 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I think that if everyone were to adopt this 'media multitasking lifestyle', the costs would certainly outweigh the benefits. It is clear, from this study, that those who are heavy media multitaskers have more difficulty paying full attention to a single stimulus. As the study shows, it could be beneficial in come situations for people to be heavy multitaskers, as they were able to pick up on outside stimuli far better than low multitaskers. Overall, the costs outweigh the benefits, but there are certainly some cases in which heavy multitasking may be beneficial.  | name | Alexis Sinclair  | Submit_button_x | 7 | Submit_button_y | 21 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I believe the costs of the media multitasking lifestyle outweigh the benefits that are outlined in this paper. Yes, being able to detect sudden environmental stimuli is useful, however I do not believe sacrificing one's ability to focus on the task at hand is worthy of such an advantage. That is to say that I believe the ability to retain as much information from the task at hand is more important than a slight increase in being able to detect variations in your environment. | name | Christopher Roll | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 14 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I think the costs outweigh the benefits.  In the literature review they present many studies that show how our intake of information is limited by multitasking and I believe rather than doing two things in mediocre fashion we should take the extra time do to the two things separately and do them well. Additionally, the potential long term effects shown in this paper also make the media multitasking lifestyle seem to have high costs. They found that the heavy media users performed worse in the tone-absent condition than the light media users. This implies that they have been conditioned now to not take in all of the information they are presented with in as timely a manner as those who were light media users. | name | Ian Kadish | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 11 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | The benefits of this kind of lifestyle seem to include a greater ability to focus on multiple sources at once. In other words, it seems like people with lots of multitasking experience have a tendency to be constantly aware of their surroundings and on alert to any changes. However, this constant alertness could tire someone out, causing them to have trouble focusing on one thing. Personally, I believe that it's more important to focus completely on one thing than to be constantly alert. Usually, emails or text messages don't lead to life or death situations, so it's important to be able to put away media. At the same time, in today's society, it is important to be connected because of family and career responsibilities. | name | Annie Chen | Submit_button_x | 31 | Submit_button_y | 14 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | According to the results of the experiment, students who were light media multitaskers performed better at finding a certain target in a tone-absent condition than did students who were heavy media multitaskers. This is most likely because students who were breadth-biased were less able to concentrate on recognizing the target when there was no external tone or distractor to serve as a signal. However, those students performed better than their peers who used less multimedia when a tone was present to accompany the target color change. This is likely because they were used to receiving information from many different sources all at once and were able to use the tone to aid them in finding the target. The students who were not used to having a lot of distractors were not able to utilize the tone and blocked it out as a distraction. 
In my opinion, heavy media multitasking has more consequences than benefits. Although it is true that students who are breadth-biased may be better at detecting potentially important information from different sources that depth-biased students may block out as background noise, they suffer from lack of focus when studying under typical conditions in an academic setting. They are less able to block out distractions and may not be able to understand what they are studying as fast or as thoroughly.    | name | Amber Liu  | Submit_button_x | 25 | Submit_button_y | 14 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Although heavy media multitaskers vastly improved their performance with the present of a tone, which means that their breadth bias can allow them to integrate random information to help with the task, I find that this situation does not occur frequently enough in the real world to be of general benefit. This study looked at the influence of irrelevant information to the task, but not relevant information. From personal experience, the mediums I use (computer, tablet, phone) provide inputs similar enough so as to interfere with each other. It would be great to be aware of something unexpected in the environment that can potentially help with my task, but it does not necessarily hurt if I am not aware of it. For most of the times (if not all), I work best when channeling all of my attention onto one medium. | name | Phuong-Nghi Pham | Submit_button_x | 17 | Submit_button_y | 8 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | Although heavy media multitaskers vastly improved their performance with the present of a tone, which means that their breadth bias can allow them to integrate random information to help with the task, I find that this situation does not occur frequently enough in the real world to be of general benefit. This study looked at the influence of irrelevant information to the task, but not relevant information. From personal experience, the mediums I use (computer, tablet, phone) provide inputs similar enough so as to interfere with each other. It would be great to be aware of something unexpected in the environment that can potentially help with my task, but it does not necessarily hurt if I am not aware of it. For most of the times (if not all), I work best when channeling all of my attention onto one medium. | name | Phuong-Nghi Pham | Submit_button_x | 22 | Submit_button_y | 18 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | A lifestyle of continual media multitasking can lead to lower comprehension and retention of information learned during periods of multitasking. Lower cognitive performance on tasks are associated with media multitasking. 

Media multitasking can provide benefits by increasing an individual's sensitivity to unexpected environmental stimuli, made possible by the increased breadth of attention of the multitasker. I would say that the costs outweigh the benefits in situations when cognitive performance is key. It may be that attention to novel environmental stimuli can be more important in certain situations, but I think that in general, one should prefer cognitive performance. Therefore, the cons outweigh the pros (in general). | name | Carlos Johnson-Cruz  | Submit_button_x | 0 | Submit_button_y | 0 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | I don't believe the costs of the "media multitasking lifestyle" outweigh the benefits. According to this paper, the only part of the experiment where heavy media multitaskers did worse was in the tone-absent condition. Upon looking at the data plot, i realized that many of those with a relatively high MMI (5-7) performed as well or as poorly as those with a low MMI (1-3). As with all things, I believe that a media lifestyle should be followed in moderation. Being connected with the modern world is definitely worth a few points in productivity.    | name | Sophia Lesperance | Submit_button_x | 21 | Submit_button_y | 13 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html | 
textarea | As described within the paper, there are both costs and benefits to the media multitasking lifestyle on cognitive performance and intellectual performance capability. Specifically, individuals with a greater media multitasking index (MMI) showed lower accuracy when assessed using the pip-and-pop task without the audio stimulus, compared to individuals who were less familiar with multitasking behavior. However, as emphasized by the experimenters, this trend was reversed when the audio stimulus was re-introduced to the pip-and-pop setup, creating a second component of media to which the participant was exposed. When presented with combined audio and visual stimuli, individuals that were more familiar with multitasking were able to outperform those with less experience interpreting multiple sources of information simultaneously. For me, these results yield multiple interpretations, depending on the different contexts to which I could apply the findings. Admittedly, the results and corresponding conclusion are incredibly enticing during situations that could include multiple stimuli and offer limited consequences should my performance be slightly inaccurate. For example, one such situation could be the completion of course readings while listening to music; slight errors in interpretation of the text due to the audial stimulus will not pose significant detriment. Alternatively, in other scenarios, such as course assessments or graded assignments, the finding that media multitasking could decrease cognitive accuracy would influence me to focus on only the assignment in order to avoid repercussions during grading. In this way, I believe that it is important to consider both the costs and benefits of media multitasking and applying that knowledge to the specific scenario in which cognitive performance is required.
 | name | Scott Nelson  | Submit_button_x | 0 | Submit_button_y | 0 | success | http://www.amherst.edu/~mdschulkind/firstclass_thanks.html |