Growing up multitasking: The costs and benefits for cognitive development

Current work, play, and learning environments require multitasking activities from children, adolescents and adults. Advances in web-enabled and multi-function devices have created a perceived need to stay “wired” to multiple media sources. The increased demand that these activities place on information processing resources has raised concerns about the quality of learning and performance under multitasking conditions. Young children, whose attention systems and executive functions are immature, are seen to be especially at risk. To evaluate these concerns the costs and benefits of “everyday” multitasking (e.g., driving, studying, multimedia learning) are examined in relation to the classic experimental literatures on divided attention in task-switching and dual-task performance. These literatures indicate that multitasking is almost always less efficient (time, accuracy) and can result in a more superficial learning than single-task performance. Alternatively, when the cognitive, perceptual, and response requirements of the tasks are controlled by the individual, when learning platforms are developmentally appropriate, and when practice is permitted, multitasking strategies can not only be successful but can result in enhanced visual and perceptual skills and knowledge acquisition. Future progress will come from advances in cognitive and computational modelling, from training attention and brain networks, and from the neuroergonomic evaluation of performance that will enable the design of work and learning environments that are optimized for multitasking.