Followup on my post about continuous partial attention – In Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences there was a report about how distractions impede learning (Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction). Relevant quote:
“What’s new is that even if you can learn while distracted, it changes how you learn to make it less efficient and useful,” said Russell A. Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. …”in general, distraction is almost always a bad thing.”
Loverly. Take your pick of newspaper articles discussing the report.
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2 Responses to “Study: Distractions Impede Learning”
I would say “I told you so,” but I never told *you*–and I’ve heard “but it’s a generational thing, the Millennial mutants have different brains, they UNDERSTAND ADD–oops, CPA” so often that I’ve backed off.
But, well, the way to do something well is to focus on it. I don’t see that changing.
Yeah, it does seem to be be one of those “duh” type studies, but it is nice to have “proof”. I guess….