Super Student!: The Art of Multitasking

On any given evening you will find me on my computer while watching television. I’m usually talking to friends on MSN while also working on online assignments. There’s also a good chance that I could be texting back and forth with either my sister or one of my best friends. The funny thing is that most of the time I don’t even realize how many different types of technology that I’m using.
If you watched the video “A Vision of Students Today” mentioned a couple of posts ago, you’ll know that that students don’t have enough time in one day to cram everything in that we’re supposed to do. This is why we have to multitask. It’s the only way we’ll come close to accomplishing everything. I want to be able to chat with my friends on MSN but I also have to find books for essays, write blog posts and comments, and type up assignments. I have to do all that, plus my favourite television show is on (I’m a rare breed of student since I still watch my television shows on an actual television).
Most students with laptops won’t bat an eyelash when they sit down to watch a movie and have their computer with them, either to do homework or to just surf online. Students become so accustomed to making sure that they get everything done that they (at least in my case) can’t quite slow down enough to just do one thing at a time.
There is the question, of course, of whether or not multitasking is actually beneficial. Some would say that trying to do four things at once will actually take more time than if you only focus on one thing at a time. Do students think about that? I didn’t really. I think that my belief seems to be that if I am using technology to do all these different things, than it must be faster and more efficient. I am probably completely wrong, especially is this article is to be believed. They say that doing many things at once actually slows us down. Once I read that I realized that when I try to do homework and watch a television show at the same time I am actually taking more time to do that than if I watched the show and then did my work afterwards. It definitely makes me feel more productive though if I have some sort of work with me when I’m watching television or a movie even though I am barely getting anything accomplished.
There’s also the question of students suffering from shorter attention spans because of the multitasking they frequently engage in. I don’t really think that’s the case, especially not for university students. We’re not working on a ton of different things because we just can’t concentrate; we’re multitasking because we have that much to do. I think part of it has to do with the way our lives are currently structured. We have five classes (usually) that we are supposed to keep up on while also trying to maintain some semblance of a life. Just trying to attend all of our classes and do all the work required means constantly shifting from one class mindset to another. Can anyone really blame us when we have so many things on the go at once?
I think technology definitely plays a part in how we multitask. Most people have cell phones or other devices that sometimes require constant attention. Laptops allow us to bring our work (or play) with us everywhere so we can access it when we need to. Once we’ve brought our laptop with us we can do work using several different programs, depending on your assignment, go online to play games, talk with friends, or do research, and we can play music on our computers as well. As great as all this technology is in assisting us with our work, I think there is something to be said about just doing one thing at a time and focusing our efforts.
Almost every single student is guilty of multitasking. I do it frequently. Right now I am finishing this post, talking on MSN and watching a rerun on television…what was I saying again…?

Stay in Touch!

Since I have been away at school for over three years now, trying to keep in touch with my friends and family is a big part of my daily life. This is something that post secondary students have had to deal with for decades; the thing that has changed is how we stay connected to our loved ones.
When my mom was at college the only ways she could stay in touch with her family and friends was by snail mail or telephone calls. Things are completely different for my sister and I. The only time I might write a letter is around Christmas or to accompany a birthday present that needs to be mailed. I hardly ever use the phone – partly because it costs extra money to call long distance. The one person I will call to talk to is my mom. I stay in touch with all my other friends by various other means. I’m not a huge phone lover to begin with and neither is my boyfriend, so we use MSN to talk to each other every night. I know some people don’t use MSN as much as they used to these days, but that is how I stay connected to my boyfriend and my younger sister.
Facebook has become a huge part of my life as well, just like most ever student. I find Facebook to be the easy way out when it comes to keeping in touch with friends. I know I’ll use it to write quick wall posts to friends who I don’t see often, but want to let them know that I’m thinking of them. Sending an email is sometimes too time-consuming and sometimes even chatting on MSN requires more commitment than I’m interested in. Sporadic wall posts make me feel like I’m not a completely useless friend and that I’m at least trying to make an effort.
Texting has also become a way for a couple of my friends and I to keep each other updated on our lives. For one friend it is mostly because he doesn’t have the internet, and for the other it’s mostly an issue of time. We’re both ridiculously busy (she works and makes the daily drive too and from school and I also used to work as well) and it is rare for us to catch each other on MSN. Texts by their very nature can’t be too involved; they are kind of like Facebook status updates – just saying the headlines. Another part of the reason that friend and I would text back and forth is because she didn’t have Facebook for about a year and wouldn’t be on MSN which are the main types of technology I use.
I think my use of technology is fairly consistent with the majority of other post secondary students. The internet is definitely the main way for me to stay in touch with my friends and family, but other forms of technology, like cell phones, have come into play as well. Students everywhere can be thankful for the various forms of participatory and social media that are available to them.

Welcome...

…to the wonderful world of a post secondary student! I’m doing this blog as a final project for my fourth year communication studies seminar. My class is called Citizen Media and the Public Sphere so this blog here will be all about how citizen media fits into the lives of college and university students. Anyone who doesn’t really know about citizen media can check out my other blog, as well as my classmates’, which deal with various topics that have to do with citizen media.
I got the idea for this blog from a YouTube video we watched in the first day of class called “A Vision of Students Today” (found below). If you are in university and watch that clip you can totally identify with everything in the video. The thing that always strikes me the most is how much of our time is used up in a day – technically, more than a day. All students are pressed for time and we have to learn good time management skills right away. I think that this is part of the reason why students today use so many different types of technology, because we want to make things easier on ourselves. Whether or not technology actually helps us is another matter. I’m going to stop the intro here. Stay tuned to find out what happens in the crazy life of a university student!