More evidence that people should put away their phone when studying

Multitasking is a bad idea. Sure, people can walk and chew gum at the same time, because neither of those require much conscious attention (unless you're just learning to walk for the first time, in which case - who gave that toddler gum?!?!?). When it comes to thinking, our brains are serial processors - we can devote our conscious attention to one thing at a time. So if I'm trying to read something for work while also checking my phone for notifications, I'm not actually multitasking - I'm switching my attention from reading to the phone to the reading, etc. sequentially. And that kind of task switching comes at a cost: it will take me longer to do each task, and it's likely I'll do a worse job at each than if I had just focused on one thing at a time.

A new study by Haverkamp et al. (2024) reaffirms that multitasking like this leads to poorer performance (in this case, as measured by a written essay testing integrating understanding). However, when students were also asked to summarize each paragraph they read, multitasking did not lead to detectable differences in performance. Does that mean people can multitask as long as they use generative strategies like summarizing? I don't think so. Of note, the group that did the best on the essay were the participants who did not multitask and who reread (rather than summarizing) each paragraph. Why? I suspect the participants simply needed more time to read, and that when they had that (i.e., when given a chance to reread), the negative effects of multitasking became more detectable. So, I wouldn't yet say that the negative effects of multitasking can be mitigated by enacting generative strategies. And I would say - put that phone away!