02x05 - Multitasking Mania

[bunniefuu]

[girls] S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] We need you

[girls] S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] Come on!

When I need help, and I've got a question

there's a place I go for inspiration

Gotta get to the Web, check the girls' investigation

What girls?

[Izzie] SciGirls!

Whoo!

[girls] S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] I need you!

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[Izzie] Come on!

You've gotta log on, post,

upload, pitch in! Yeah!

Wanna get inside a world that's fascinating?

The time is right 'cause SciGirls are waiting,

[girls] S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] We need you!

[girls] S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] SciGirls!!

OMG, that made me LOL.

[Jake] Iz.

Oh, uh, I just figured out down.

Iz!Just a sec.

No, this is not right,

you're doing too many things at once.

Can I have your attention, please?

Of course, you can.

Good, so, like I was saying...

Ah, ah, ah, Jake, I'm talking here, not talking to you.

[muffled voice on phone]

No, no, no, I am talking to you.

Whoa, you are seriously doing too many things.

What? I'm a great multitasker.

Are you talking to me?

Yes.Oh good,

because I think you need to check in

with the SciGirls to see if they have a way to help you focus.

No! I said "yes" because I figured out what across is.

Oh, I wrote that in nail polish! [exhales]

SciGirls... we need you!

You might be right.

I wonder if the SciGirls ever have to multitask.

SciGirls, if you're not too busy with other things,

I could use a little help.

Oh, this one... oh, here it is!

Watch for the arrows! They're clues

for the "Pick'M, Stick'M" game on the website.

[dial tone]

[phone rings]

Hello?

Hello, Alejandra, what's up?

Nothing, just washing dishes and listening to music.

I thought we'd play the question game. [phone rings]

Yeah, what's the best present that you ever got?

Hi Faith, what are you doing?

Watching TV, playing ping-pong.

I'm just doing homework, and I'm on the computer.

When I multitask; I'm crocheting

and I'm watching TV or even reading a book.

When I multitask, I text, listen to music.

When I multitask, I'm usually like on the Internet

or doing homework and watching TV.

[phones ring; all SciGirls talk at once]

[Maria] Multitasking is pretty much doing

two or more things at the same time.

My name is Maria and I think I'm pretty good at multitasking.

It's really fun to be able

to have this experience with all the girls

because they're really some of my close friends.

[Faith] I think we're a pretty good team

because we each have our own talents,

and we really are interested in science.

My name is Faith.

People around my age,

I think that they multitask too much

when they're doing homework.

[Alejandra] My parents really do get mad when I'm texting

while talking to them.

I'm Alejandra and I multitask a lot.

My favorite part about science

is being able to do experiments.

[Josie] You can clearly see that there's some bad things

about multitasking, like texting and driving.

I'm Josie, and I multitask all the time.

What I love about science is that I can be a part

of finding answers to all the questions that I have

about the world around me.

Welcome to St. Kate's, come on in.

Today we met our mentor, Dr. Christena Cleveland.

She is a psychologist, and she will help us

with our multitasking research.

Scientists have been studying multitasking for a long time,

and there's actually a little bit of controversy

about whether multitasking is good or bad.

One theory basically says that you can multitask,

as long as you're pretty good at doing both of the tasks.

However, there's some other theories that say

you're never really doing tasks at the same time.

You're actually just switching back and forth between tasks.

And so the one thing that most people agree on

is that you're never as good at any of the tasks

when you're multitasking, than you would be

if you were just doing it by itself.

Christena showed us a model of a brain, and it was really cool

to see like, the motor activity and the sensory,

to see how they all connected and worked together.

Whenever we multitask,

we're doing lots of different jobs at the same time.

So a term that we use is called cognitive processes.

It's basically like thinking processes

or the different processes that the brain is involved in

when we're doing different tasks.

Your brain has control centers, and in those control centers,

you use thought processes to do different activities.

So if you're trying to listen to people talk at the same time,

both conversations are actually using the same part of the brain,

and so it's really hard to do both at one time

because there's sort of brain overloading.

It can only handle so much at a time.

Christena gave us a few different activities to do

to prove that we can't really multitask.

We're just going to tap like this.

It's easy.

Oh, so you can do this, okay.

What if with the other hand on the other leg we tapped twice as fast?

Can you do both at the same time?

[laughs]

I felt like, really frustrated

because I was trying so hard to do it,

my brain felt like it was going to explode or something.

[Christena] Because you're using the same part of the brain

to do both tasks, your brain can't really handle that.

Unless you're really good at this task, like a drummer.

Sure, a drummer, yeah, always have to keep

different beats and just, they have a lot of practice with it.

When psychologists are interested in looking

to see what people are doing in their natural settings,

we do something that we call an ethnographic study,

and that's just basically going to where people are

and observing them, looking to see what kind of behavior

they're doing in a specific situation.

We went down to the cafeteria at St. Kate's

and we did an ethnographic study.

We observed college students' typical activities

and what they did for multitasking.

We broke up into teams

and of us went to one side of the cafe

and the other two went to the other side.

And we would write down our observations for minutes.

[Alejandra] Spying on people-- that was pretty fun.

It did feel kind of awkward

when they would turn around and look at us.

[Maria] It seemed like they were there to do their homework,

but along the way they got distracted with

maybe a computer or texting or just talking to their friends.

Hi Christena!Hey girls.

[Faith] After we collected our data, we went up to Christena

to show her our results.

We found out that a lot of people that,

instead of doing homework,

or doing what they're initially there to do, they talk

or spend a lot of time texting instead.

So it might be different for different age groups.

[Josie] We decided it would be interesting to see

how kids our own age are multitasking

compared to the college students at St. Kate's.

Another thing that we psychologists do

is, sometimes we devise surveys.

Maybe we should make a survey. Yeah, we should.

So we designed a survey to give our classmates.

Most people are really overconfident

when it comes to predicting how good they are at multitasking.

How often do they multitask?

Do you think it affects the quality

of whatever you're working on?

What do they do when they multitask.

The survey consisted of how good

do you think you are at multitasking

and what do you do when you multitask?

[Maria] So one thing that people do while doing homework

is listening to music or texting.

Talking on the phone or being like, on Facebook or Twitter

and playing video games.

When we go to school tomorrow, we could survey some people,

asking these questions and giving them the options

of how they multitask.

I'm really excited to see what your survey results are; it sounds good.

Thanks so much for helping us.You're welcome.

Bye.Bye!

Hello, Hola, [speaks Korean]

I'm Maria, I'm years old and I come from Mexico.

I taught myself how to draw, and it's really fun,

and I do it all the time.

Duct Tape is my favorite kind of tape.

I use it for decorating, I Duct-Taped my sketchbook.

I love listening to South Korean music

and my friend is teaching me how to speak Korean. Good-bye!

We're taking our survey into our school,

and we're going to survey a couple different classrooms.

We have been researching multitasking

and how th graders do it, when they do it,

how well they think they do it, and we created a survey,

we don't want your name on this, so it's a blind survey.

The survey is voluntary; you don't have to take it.

[Josie] Some of the things that we're going to ask the students

on the survey is to rate themselves on a scale from to

on how good they think they are at multitasking.

[Alejandra] Another question we asked was, while you're doing your homework,

what are you doing at the same time?

Thank you for participating.

[Josie] They finished and collected them,

and I think it went really well.

Hi guys. Today we're going to be

giving you guys a survey about multitasking.

And multitasking is doing one or more things at the same time.

So just circle whichever ones you do while you're doing homework.

So now you guys can just fill out your surveys.

[Alejandra] I think it was really fun to be

in front of the class presenting to everyone.

It's even different than public speaking or presenting a project.

Yeah, 'cause we were actually teaching, telling the class what to do.

Now we can know what it feels like to be a teacher.

[Josie] We all just really want to thank you for taking the time

out of your class to fill out these surveys.

And we really appreciate that! [schoolbell rings]

Christena stopped in and helped us sort through the data.

[Christena] Tell me what you're studying.

What do you guys think about the data on that first question?

Boys had a lot of confidence because most of them

answered , and so did the girls,

and only one boy and one girl answered .

A lot of people were really confident

and they mostly circled s or s.

people answered that

they listen to music while doing schoolwork.

They also said they do social media, like Facebook and Twitter.

So it seems like almost everyone is saying, "Yes, I do that."

Social media and listening to music were probably

the biggest ones that people multitask with,

but what I found interesting was that

people thought it was easy to do that.

[Christena] It would be interesting to see if what your classmates think

is true, that music is just as easy as social media.

Or even texting, just because it doesn't take

quite a much time as being on an actual computer.

Sometimes it's really hard to come up with real experiments

to test what you're doing, that are actually reasonable and easy to do,

so oftentimes, I start with what I call a pilot test.

A pilot test is a smaller scale experiment

that we could do on each other

before giving it to a whole class.

We might come up with a couple of pilot tests,

just ideas on different types of multitasking tasks.

Christena told us that it would be a good idea

to take what we learned from the survey and test it ourselves.

Hi, my name's Alejandra, and this is my sister.

I'm Alexia.

And we're at the lake; it's frozen so you can walk on it.

This is my room; over here, I have my nail polishes.

I have some books, some trophies,

and I practice my violin here.

I have a sticker of myself that I got last year,

and I'm just wearing my dance costume. Adios.

[Faith] What do you guys want to test?

I think we should texting,

just because everyone texts now and it's really big.

I also think that maybe we could do something with music.

And that might be easier to test too.

[Faith] We decided to split into groups and test each other,

listening to music while doing homework

and texting while doing homework.

We should think of some ideas

about how we could test music and homework.

Something that would mimic doing homework.

Homework that would be easiest to test is memory.

We took different items and we arranged them.

[Alejandra] We're going to be having

the girls study the items on the shelf, then we're

just going to take all of the items off of the shelf,

and they're going to come back and try to place the items

where they originally were.

Should we have them test it?Yeah.

We will give you a minute, and you can observe the shelf.

But what do I do?You just observe the shelf.

I just look at it?

Observe the shelf.

That was really all we could tell her without giving away

the whole entire purpose of our experiment.

So we just keep repeating, "Please observe the shelf,

"please observe the shelf."

Your instructions are to observe the shelf.

Okay, okay, I'll observe it!

And... stop!

[Josie] Then we had Maria leave the room,

and we completely disorganized the whole shelf.

We're going to have you put the items back on the shelf.

In the order you saw them. Go.

Stop.

Okay. Then we had Maria do the same thing, but listening to music.

, , go.

Stop.

You will have a minute to rearrange. Go.

Done?Yeah.

It was a great experience

to teach them this whole experiment and give them a test.

So that's mistakes; let's give her an .

She did really good.

For our test, we noticed that the participants

did better while they were listening to music,

which was very surprising.

We would have thought that

they would have done better without any music.

Cheers!

That was very good.It's just a wonderful experiment.

So we get to design the test

for Alejandra and Josie about texting.

We were going to put some blocks in the box

and take out some blocks, and they would have to tell us

how many were in the box, and that would be our homework.

And you have to keep track of how many blocks

are in the box at the end of one minute, ready, go.

Stop.

?Yup.

Now, you will be counting how many blocks

are in there at the end of one minute, but also,

I will be texting you questions while you're doing that.

Okay.Okay, ready? Go.

Stop.?

Yup.

Her phone didn't get the text right when I sent it.

The text messages would get delayed about seconds,

which wouldn't have the results be as accurate.

Only one was sent, and only one was answered.

If I had actually gotten all of your questions,

it would have been really hard!

[laughs] I probably would have failed.

I have devised this test of your multitasking skill

with the help of the SciGirls.

Are you ready?

You have my sole attention.

Not for long, go!

Now sing the alphabet.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I J, K,

Good, now answer these questions about me.

[Izzie] Q, R, S, T, [Jake] What is my favorite food?

U, V, Ah, chocolate sundae, pizza

with the topping of crushed cheesy puffs.

[Jake] Correct. [Izzie] ♪ V, Q, I told you I was a great multitasker.

Sing! [Izzie sings the alphabet again] [Jake] Last question--

why am I so awesome?

H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, Whoa!

I'm sorry, that is incorrect-- the answer is, no one knows

why I'm so awesome-- I just am!

You clearly need to stop multitasking.

No, Jake, that test was too hard; it doesn't prove anything!

I'm still an awesome multitasker.

Let's see what my ladies, the SciGirls, think about that.

After we all got our results from our various tests,

we met up with Christena.

So it sounds like you guys got some really good experience

running these pilot tests and seeing what went well,

what didn't go well, and could take what you've learned,

and then try to kind of build a new study

with all the new knowledge that you have now,

that you like, have done it, what do you guys want to do?

[Josie] I think maybe texting, because a lot of people think

that it's more of a distraction than listening to music.

We wanted to use, you're doing homework

and texting at the same time on a larger-scale experiment.

I know you guys know that texting is,

makes your homework scores probably go down;

it's a big distraction, it's hard to focus,

but my college students don't.

Christena told us that a lot of them were texting in her class,

then they thought that they could still do the same amount of work.

I promise you, I will tell them the results

of the study that you guys ran, so that we can prove them wrong.

How are we going to fix the texting issue?

Should we give them the questions ahead of time,

so they don't have to wait for the questions to come?

Like, write them on a cue card or something?

Right, and then hold them up and have them text their reply.

I'm looking forward to seeing the results, so good luck.

[SciGirls] Thank you!

Hi, I'm Josie, welcome to my house.

I love to crochet; I like playing ping-pong.

One of my favorite hobbies is scrapbooking.

I love going to yoga with my sister.

I like to teach my cat tricks. Roll over!

[cat meows]

I live on a golf course, and I like to go golfing.

[swak!] [clatter] Fore!

And the thing I love to do most is spend time with my family.

Bye!

We're at the high school auditorium today

to give a larger scale of our pilot test.

How about I'll put the balls in, you can take them out? [Faith] Okay.

[Josie] To get ready, we are preparing our questions,

assigning jobs and tasks, and kind of running it through

to see what works well and what doesn't.

How many balls do you think should be left in it at the end?

I think that it should be less than but more than .

Make sure that you raise the balls high enough

so that the people in the front row can see them.

Is this okay?Yeah.

Tell us when the minute's up and when we should switch questions.

[Josie] I'm bringing my friend Emily in, so she's going to help us

use the stopwatch and time our experiment.

[Faith] Each of us has invited a couple of friends to come and test out,

and we're really excited to do it.

We can't wait to see the results.

Hi guys! [all] Hi.

Thank you guys so much for coming today.

We are going to play a game

to find out information on how th graders multitask.

This game has simple rules and all you have to do really

is keep track of how many balls are in a blue bin.

Starting in , , .

And stop.

If you guys could write how many balls are left in the blue bin.

[girl] . [Josie] How many people got it right?

[Maria] Of the people that tested,

people were able to keep track of the balls.

Please take out your phones.

Trial , Maria and I will be holding up cards with questions,

and they will have to text us back the answers

while still counting the balls.

, , .

In this test, people seemed like they're super focused,

and it looks like they're really having fun during it.

And... stop.

We'll count how many balls were actually in the bin.

. [laughter] [girl] Yes! [nd girl] I had .

We found that the people in our experiment did better

when they were only counting, but in trial ,

when they were counting and texting, they did a lot worse.

Thank you guys so much for doing this.

We hope you had fun. Bye! Bye!

Hi, I'm Faith, and I speak languages.

The flute is my favorite instrument.

I do math every day, and I'm good at it. I like math!

I like to read books with a lot of drama.

I like Sudoko puzzles because they're challenging.

Bye, or [speaks Swahili]

After the experiment was done, we went back to Josie's house

and looked at the results.

Out of the people we surveyed,

people got it right the first time,

and only people got it right the second time, while texting.

is a really low number.

Especially compared to .

We predicted that people would

do worse in trial , and that's true,

but we didn't realize it would be quite so drastic,

that it would be people got it right in trial compared

to only people got it right in trial .

Do you guys want to make a graph? [all] Yeah!

As we went along with this whole entire experiment,

we knew that doing a second task in multitasking

diminished the quality of work

compared to only doing one task at a time,

but we just proved that, and it's super exciting

that we have data and a graph that shows people that

the quality of work is lessened when you're multitasking.

[all] Hi Christena! [Christena] Hi girls!

We called Christena and told her the results

and she was super excited that we got the experiment

and it went off with no problems.

So the texting was a lot worse than you had thought.

[SciGirls] Yeah.

Those are amazing results; I think it really shows,

you have some support for your hypothesis.

Multitasking is not helpful, right? [SciGirls] Yeah.

Maybe we could give you the graph

so that you can share it with your students.

That would be awesome, and I'm really excited

to tell them about these amazing girls that I met

who collected all this great data to help the world.

[SciGirls] It was really fun to work with you; we really appreciate it. [Christena] You're welcome.

[SciGirls] Bye. Bye Christena! [Christena] Bye, see you later.

See you.

[Faith] This experiment has definitely opened my eyes

to the field of psychology

and the fact that we had fun while doing it is just a bonus.

It's amazing that scientists do this every day,

so it was really fun to learn all these new things.

I've never really had so much fun doing an experiment

and it really showed me that

you can have fun doing science.

Whenever you come together with a team

and everyone tries their hardest,

you can find an answer to any question big or small,

and it was a super great experience to have.

Got your clues? Head on over to the Web and play

"Pick'M, Stick'M" at pbskidsgo.org.

Okay, you were right,

the SciGirls proved it with their ball test.

I'm ready to get serious.

[turns off loud music]

Now I'm ready to give you my full attention, no multitasking.

Yes, ye-ha-ha-yes!

Jake.You are going down!

What, I am? What are you talking about?

Double trouble, b*mb and bubble.

Jake, are you playing Bubble Bombs?

Or as I like to say, are you multitasking?

WhatOh yeah, uh-huh, I am, sorry Izzie.

If you can't b*at 'em, join 'em!

Ha, you are going down Jake, going down!

Ha, ha, ha, I just popped like, bubbles.

Ha, ha, ha, going down!