Bethea 1

Kimberly Bethea
Dr. Alan Reid
English 101
October 23, 2015

Multitasking vs. Technology

The terms multitasking and technology is something that has

been a big topic of discussion nowadays. The reason this is a general topic is
because more people are starting to do these things without even realizing.
Individuals, who tend to multitask, are prone to do this whenever something else
needs to be done. Technology begins to tie into this because; you want to be on
technology and doing something else as well. Children are now being influenced
by so much and are even multitasking more than adolescents and adults. Research
has been brought into this situation and it is clear that multitasking with
technology is what the society does on a daily basis. This is a problem that can be
stop, but the question is What is causing all this multitasking with technology?
The purpose of me writing this is to grasp an idea of what I really
want to talk about in my paper and to compare my sources that I have found. This
is going to help me decided what my main focus is going to be and what my
downfall shall be. All of my sources share some differences and similarities
within each one. From reading each of my sources you will understand why I

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decided to stick with my main topic, instead of hinting around my topic. The
authors in each of my sources briefly explain why they are writing and what they
want their readers to get from reading it. Each author is not the same, but they
each share one thing in common between one another.

Martyn, Margaret. Clickers in the classroom: An Active Learning Approach.

EDUCAUSEReview (2007): 1-2. Kimbel Library. EDUCAUSEReview. Web. 16
Oct. 2015
The article Clickers in the Classroom by Margaret Martyn
discusses how bringing clickers in the classroom can be a problem for students.
She goes on to explain how students can easily be sidetracked from this. Yes,
there are helpful, but at the same time they can be a distraction for them. The
purpose of the clickers is to benefit active learning approaches and suppose to
make the students acclimated to technology. The clickers are there to engage
students more than just listening to a boring lecture. This also is supposed to make
the students pay more attention and help their grades as well. Throughout the
article, she explains that research show that the students enjoyed using them, and
the teachers thought it benefited them very well. The question behind it all was
why they want to use clickers in the classroom instead of just doing class
discussions.
Clickers in the Classroom, is a very reliable source because it
gives information that can be used for future reference. The article includes
graphs that can be used to show how well the information is reliable. Margaret

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Martyn did all the research herself to prove that the clickers in the classroom did
not improve the traditional active learning approach. I decided to use this source
first because it talks about children and how technology is being involved more in
classrooms. Compared to all my other sources, Margaret was the only one to do
research on a group of students. The author used a lot of broad examples that
explained what the purpose of the article was. The reason/goal of this was to
prove that students are not going to learn better by putting technology in a
classroom that distracts them from doing their work.
Using this article was a big help because it tied into my main focus
of my research paper. This article helps me think of a way to incorporate children,
and statistics in my research paper. Having a broader perspective, and a good
article helps you shape what your main focus is. In my paper, I want to compare
and incorporate some arguments as well. All the articles that I have found will
help me make my paper more informational and much stronger. This article also
has a lot of opinionated statements, which I will use to compare my articles
between each other. Even though this is my first article, it made me think more
outside the topic than just the one I was given.

Brown, Thomas E. AD/HD and Challenges of Adulthood. attention@chadd.org

(February 2006): 34-35. Kimbel Library. Web. 7 Oct. 2015

AD/HD Challenges of Adulthood by Thomas E. Brown, talks

about the challenges and causes that lead to AD/HD in adulthood. The question is,

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is how do adults get diagnosed at such at an older age? The reason for the article
is to explain how adults are diagnosed with AD/HD because of their careless
habits. You would think that when you are younger, that is when you get
diagnosed with something dealing with attention span. I picked this article
because it specifically talks about attention span which is what my main topic
focuses on. In the article it covers AD/HD, adulthood causes of AD/HD and how
adults can overcome something at such an older age. This helps me cover
basically what I want to discuss in my paper to talk about attention span
difference between adults, and children. If I was asked what this article was about,
I would say discussing how adults face a challenge they know nothing about. I
would also say that it talks about the causes and effects of getting AD/HD which
is very helpful information.
Using this article was very helpful to helping me form a broader
topic for my paper. It gave information, statistics and other information to help
those who are going through this challenge. I feel from reading this article it is
very credible to me because it was written by a PH.D who has obviously did
research upon this to create an article. Somethings in the article may be
opinionated, but I feel that most of the information is research. Compared to my
other articles it is main one that talks about diagnoses in adulthood. This makes
the article stand out more than the others because of what it discusses as a whole.
I do not think the author wanted to be biased, but in some parts he was gave his
own opinion about some stuff. The whole point of the article was for the readers

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to understand how and why AD/HD occurs in adulthood. It wants readers to be
informed of ways they can prevent this from happening to them in the future.
Reading this article, I learned that it shapes my research because
this is my focus I want to talk about in my paper. I want to discuss how AD/HD
ties into attention span and multitasking. This article shapes my argument by
stating that multitasking and technology can also deal with a person having a
disorder that they may not be able to control. People with AD/HD cannot help
that their attention span is shorter than others, when it comes to trying to focus on
one thing. Finding more articles on medical diagnoses with attention span help me
think broader. It helps me think of what I really want to talk about and how I can
discuss it more than just summarizing.

Brown, Thomas E. Inside the ADD Mind. Attitude Magazine (April/May 2006): 3-4.
Kimbel Library. Web. 7 October 2015

ADD is a well-known term for those who have an attention deficit

disorder. Written by Thomas E. Brown, this author has gone above and beyond to
explain the challenges people with ADD face. In this article it talks ADD and it
deals with attention span in adolescents. Adolescents attention span is usually
short because they busy doing something else. Sometimes this is the case but
sometimes it is not because they have an attention deficit disorder known as
ADD. Inside the ADD Mind, the main topic was ADD life and symptoms. Not
only does Thomas Brown talk about life with ADD, but he gives symptoms and

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treatments that can help with this. I believe he incorporated this because he
wanted to help people who are going through this disorder. If I was asked to
explain this I would say it was an informal writing on a disorder than people are
diagnosed with every day. It was written to give readers a chance to understand
how it feels to be a victim of ADD.
I am not going to say that this source is the most useful one, but it
does give me a lot of information I can use in my article. Thomas Brown is a
well-known guy that studies the human brain and how it works. Its amazing how
he can research things about the human mind than write an article that explains
exactly what he researched. I think this is all of his work and that it has all
research encountered into it. Compared to all my other sources this one gives
symptoms and treatments of those suffering with ADD. My other source does not
give as much information as well as this one. I think Thomas main focus was to
give the readers true information and real life examples. I do not think that his
article was opinionated, or made up work. From reading this article from in a
readers view, I would say that the goal of this source is to inform readers of how
serious this disorder is. Some people pay it no mind of how hard it is for people to
deal with this every day.
Out of all the articles that I did my research on, I believe this one
has the most information and explanation than all of them. My source is credited
to help me talk about my topic in my research paper. It has strong background
information that I need that will help me with my attention span topic. I want to
prove to those who think having a disorder is not a reason for short attention span.

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Sometimes you just cannot help your disorder, but some fail to realize that. This is
why I wanted to use this article so I can argue against this theory. I decided to use
it in this way because I feel it will give me enough information to explain exactly
what I am talking about. Reading this article really did not change the way I want
to present my topic, but it did give me some ideas that I could talk about in my
paper.

Moshe, Naveh-Benjamin. Older Adults Do Not Notice Their Names: A New Twist to a
Classic Attention Task. The Journal of Experimental Psychology. Volume 40.
Issue 6. (Nov2014): 1540-1550. Kimbel Library. Web. 12 October 2016
Older Adults Do Not Notice Their Names, was a very interesting
article based on attention span. The article gave interesting facts about how the
older you get, your attention span began to worsen. In the article they did
conducted experiments that proved this theory. Studies show that men attention
span is higher than young men. In the experiment that the researchers did was on
men trying to watch television and spot their name. This is what the author used
to get his results based on this experiment. Other researchers of the experiment
were upset because they thought the results were false. They conducted the
experiment more than once and they received the same results each time. This
really made them argue against this because they said that attention span is based
on what you are doing. In the end they finally came to the conclusion that maybe
the results were accurate. Some topics that were covered in the article were shortterm memory, attention span and age. I think that these topics are very helpful if

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you are trying to find one main topic to focus on in a paper. If I had to briefly
explain this article to someone, I would say that it talks about how attention span
within adults who are older. I would also say that it describes the struggles of
trying to comprehend something when your mind is busy doing something.
I am not going to say that this source is very useful, but it did make
me think about your age. I thought about this because it is amazing how your
attention span changes the older that you get. Naveh-Benjamin Moshe is a
Psychology researcher on memory and attention span. He conducts experiments
that prove these theories on memory and attention span. The information that is
given is very credible because it is research related. All experiments were
conducted by and researched by the author. This source compares a lot to my first
source because both of the authors conducted experiments. This proves that each
one of them wanted to prove something that everyone was against. Being that
Naveh is a researcher, I would think that his information is very reliable. This is
my opinion but his information he used was just the results he got from
conducting experiments. This is why I feel that his information that he used is
very credible and useful. Reading this source, I will say that the information is not
opinionated, but it is information that was gathered through research. Research
information is always accurate and it can be used to write a research paper. The
goal of this article is to let readers know about attention span and difference in
older men. Basically, researchers that write articles, the main focus is to inform
readers about their research they found.

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After thoroughly reading this article, I must say that it was very
useful for my research paper. I say this in details because it will help me compare
age in my research paper. It shapes my arguments because I want to explain that
attention span not only happen to those who are younger, adults as well. This
article will come in great help in this discussion. None of the content in this article
changed my way of thinking, but it did give me new ideas for my paper I can use.

Finley, Jason R. Metacognition of multitasking: How well do we predict the cost of

divided attention? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied Volume 20.
Issue 2. (June 2014) Pages 158-165. Kimbel Library. Web. 12 October 2015

In todays society, people tend to pay more attention instead of

dividing time within doing things. This source explains all about how people do
not divide their time when they are doing stuff. Your main focus is on doing what
is grabbing your attention, not what you really should be doing. This is where
dividing the time comes in with this article. Some topics that are covered in this
article are dividing attention, multitasking and prediction. These are mainly
covered because people pay none of this attention when they are busy doing
something. If I was asked to explain this article, I would say that it is very
informational because it informs readers about their habits they are doing.
Metacognition of multitasking is a very useful source to readers.
It informs and gives readers a chance to look at the habits they have picked up
over time. This article can be used in many different ways if it was needed to, and

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I plan to use it in my research paper very well. In comparison to my other sources,
this source is the main one that gives readers a chance to evaluate themselves
based on their habits. My other sources that I used were informal but none of
them gave as much information as this one. This article information is very
reliable because it comes from known experience and research of others. I would
rely on this source because I can use it for a clear warning to inform others as
well. I do not believe the author information is opinionated because do not divide
their attention when it comes to do something. You do not realize something until
you actually do it than you realize your mistake. The goal is this article is to give
readers a chance to balance their time when they are multitasking. It wants readers
to be informed that when you do not pay attention that is when an accident can
happen.
After carefully evaluating this source, I feel that it this article is
very useful when it comes to informing the public. Informational articles are the
best ones because they inform readers with vivid information. For my research
paper it is going to go well with my argument that I plan to shape my argument
around. For my argument, I want to encounter an argument based on how people
are not paying attention to what they are doing. I can use this to make my paper
stronger and to give me a change to back myself up off of the information I
learned. I want to use this source as a promotion that informs readers to divide
their time between doing activities. This article has changed me just by reading
and evaluating from it. It has taught me that I need to pay more attention and that

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I need to be careful of the way I divide my attention. I feel this article could be
helpful to others the same way it was helpful towards me.