People who often mix their media
consumption—texting while watching TV, or listening to music while
reading—are not known for being able to hold their attention on one
task. But sharpening their focus may be as simple as breathing.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have shown that heavy media multitaskers benefited from a short meditation exercise in which they sat quietly counting their breaths.
"In general, people perform better after this mindfulness
task," says Thomas Gorman, first author of the study, which was
published April 18 by the journal Scientific Reports. "But we found a significant difference for heavy media multitaskers. They improved even more on tests of their attention."
Juggling the demands of competing media sources has grown
increasingly common as music, video, news and messaging creep onto more
devices and into more day-to-day activities."Many people have had the experience where they've felt a phantom phone ring or vibration in their pocket," says C. Shawn Green, UW-Madison psychology professor and senior author of the study. "That means part of your attention is actively monitoring your leg, even while you're trying to do other things."
The effect may be similar when working or studying on a computer also involves checking for incoming email or chat messages.
"Most of us who study media multitasking think that monitoring lots of sources constantly—instead of devoting yourself to one thing —induces a more distributed attentional state," Green says.
Studies have shown that people who most often let several
types of media overlap can be distracted in the moment, but also score
poorly on tests that assess attention even when the media sources are
absent. That's bad news for performance at school or work, for
maintaining relationships and for general well-being.
Previous work by Daniel Levinson and his mentor Richard
Davidson at UW-Madison's Center for Healthy Minds has shown that a
number of benefits arise from a simple, guided online mindfulness
meditation exercise in which participants repeatedly count groups of
breaths—nine inhales and exhales.
"We thought this mindfulness task might be particularly
useful to media multitaskers because it is, conceptually, somewhat the
opposite of media multitasking," Green says. "It's deep focus on a
single thing, and that single thing is not actually very demanding of
your attention."
Minds are bound to wander during the exercise, according to
Gorman, and as such it requires active practice in adjusting and
refocusing attention.
"No one can stay focused on it indefinitely," he says. "When
you notice your attention slipping away, you bring it back over and
over. You're practicing that skill, refocusing your attention."
Study participants—comprising people who reported frequent
media multitasking and those who rarely combine media—spent parts of two
days taking standard tests that measure their attention. On one day the
attention tests were interspersed with Web browsing. On the other, each
test was preceded by 10 minutes of the breath-counting exercise.
Heavy media multitaskers scored worse than light media multitaskers all around and both groups posted better attention
scores right after counting breaths. Most critically, though, heavy
multitaskers made greater strides than their low multitasker
counterparts after breath counting.
"We know that the beneficial effects aren't long lasting in
this case, as they didn't carry over across days," says Green. "However,
one thing the presence of the short-term effects suggests is that the
attentional system in heavy media multitaskers isn't intractably
affected. It is possible for heavy media multitaskers to adopt a more
focused attentional state."
Green and Gorman believe the results indicate the value of
further exploring whether the approach can be modified to induce lasting
improvements.
When inhaling media erodes attention, exhaling provides focus
Reviewed by Bizpodia
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