Techno-Multitasking, Sleep, Learning and PerformanceCan Teenagers Really Do It All?

Head-Royce School/ 510-531-1300

January 2010

! Karen Bradley, Ph.D.

Please do not reproduce any portion of this article without explicit permission from the author.

The Whole World Takes Place On Line. . . . And if it Doesnt, I Dont Wanna Go There.
Kim is an intelligent, thoughtful, very wired senior at the small independent K-12 school where I teach. She carries her laptop with her everywhere; uses it in every class where she is allowed to and during many of her free periods. In 2007, when she was a sophomore in my US History class, Kim had to undertake a research project, and she chose to focus on Oakland redevelopment in the 1960s. As it happened, there was little Oakland history online at that time, and so when a rough draft came in that was weak on background, I handed Kim a book about the history of Oakland. You need to read this, I said. This is where the information you need is. You wont find it online. Kim never read the book. Why not? Her academic skills were strong, she was interested in her topic, she had done solid online research; but she couldnt find what it took to crack the book open. Had her brain become wired so that she could only process information mediated by a computer screen? Daniel is an energetic, smart, red-headed high school junior. He was a student in Jen Brakemans AP Biology last year. We were talking about study habits, distractions, and time spent doing homework one day, Jen recalled, and I CAN Daniel excitedly shared this study/listen to information with the class: my iPod/check I have to listen to rock and roll my Facebook and on my iPod while Im studying! Its the only way I can focus! text my friends Nothing Jen said could convince at the same Daniel that the music he time! listened to as background was interfering with his learning. Jen and I became fascinated with how ubiquitous Internet access has transformed learning, and how many people have become persuaded that multitasking like Daniels is useful and effective. As teachers, parents, researchers, and avid users of technology ourselves, we wanted to know for sure what is really going on with students like Daniel that leads them to feel they absolutely have to listen to musicrock and roll, at thatwhile they are also engaged in complex learning, like reading an AP-level Biology book? What is really going on with adolescents like Kim, who can no longer bring themselves to read bookson-paper? In 2007, Jen, a neuroscientist by training, and I, a historian whose skills have been turned in recent years to researching questions of child development and technology, began an interdisciplinary research project to explore this topic. We began with three questions suggested by the stories I just told: Are adolescents less able to focus on a single task, especially one that is not on a screen, than they used to be? If so, could it be because they experience so much more visual and cognitive stimulation from computers, cell phones and iPods than adolescents did 15 years ago? Can people actually concentrate on a complex learning task if they are listening to rock and roll in their earbuds? We looked at Social Science literature and Neurological studies to answer our questions. This article as a result combines evidence from behavioral experiments, observational studies, expertise from the fields of psychology and business with neuroscience, which in experiments often involves scans of brains done under experimental conditions (fMRIs). Our conclusions suggest that young people are becoming wired in a new way. They also suggest that multitasking, the preferred work mode of today, is both fantastic and problematic. We need to understand the true nature of multitasking and why adolescents are actually less equipped to manage multitasking than adults are, in spite of what they tell us and what we seem to observe in terms of their facility with computers, cell phones and online worlds. There is also a powerful connection between technomultitasking, sleep, and performance. The worlds that are literally at our fingertips today are marvelous, and the power of what people can now learn, do and share is almost limitless. We need to help adolescents learn to wire their brains and their bodies for a healthy and productive long haul journey.

Page 2

Background: There are two types of multitasking

Synthesizing multitasking, a process of higher-order brain functioning that is sometimes associated with a state called flow, is a process of managing and processing multiple related inputs to solve a complex problem. An example of synthesizing multitasking is a student working on a research project with multiple media inputs such as text, screen, documentary stills, recordings, an outline, multiple drafts. Distracting multitasking, a process of managing interruptions, is quite different. In this case, a person is managing and prioritizing multiple unrelated inputs. An example of distracting multitasking is an adolescent doing her Biology homework who gets repeatedly interrupted by IM, cell phone, who is listening to popular music on her iPod while she works, who is in a room with the TV on, who has a sibling playing video games in the same room. Some people call what we do when we are monitoring a slew of potential unrelated communications paying continuous partial attention. When am I going to get another message? When can I read a juicy post on someones Facebook? When am I going to get a Twitter alert?

http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/b b/kinser/images/humanlobes.gif

Background: Neural correlates of executive function

Multitasking is actually switching rather than doing things simultaneously.
When neuroscientists do fMRIs they are looking for activation in various parts of the brain. In order to appreciate the impact of multitasking on the brain, it is helpful to understand some basic brain structure and function. The cerebral cortex, the outside portion of the brain, is where working- or shortterm memory occurs, where information processing takes place, where consciousness is, where long term memories are stored, and where executive functioning is housed. Being able to access long-term memory in learning is important. Long-term memories are stored in various parts of the cerebral cortex in intricate networks. Short-term memories become long-term memories when connections are strengthened. This takes place through rehearsal, caring, using that information in new ways. Amygdala activation can help by placing emotional weight on information: as Jen so often demonstrates both in class and in professional talks, I learn (Jen and the audience mime the activation of the horseshoe-shaped hippocampus) because I care (Jen and the audience mime the activation of the almondshaped amygdala)! Another implication of the way Short Term and Long Term memories interact is that whatever we do wires our brain, and the more we do it, the more what we do becomes hard wired. We will return to this concept later. The prefrontal cortex is what makes humans different from other animals. It governs several uniquely human cognitive talents, called executive functions: solving problems, maintaining attention, inhibiting emotional impulses (Medina, 2008), the ability to plan, prioritize and organize. Both Working memory and Long Term Memory are needed for good executive function. Residing in the Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, working memory is part of executive function. It temporarily holds things in your mind while other parts of your brain sift through short-term memories, long-term memories, the environment, and so on, looking for connections. These memories can be altered or erased and overwritten while they are in process of becoming long-term memories (Medina, 2008).

http://www.brainconnection.com/ med/medart/l/amygdala.jpg

Page 3

The Computer Revolution: Barely a Generation Old

Since the 1990s, when techno-multitasking was born, the computer has transformed how people work and communicate: instead of simply working on one program for hours at a time, a computer user could work on several different ones simultaneously. . . . As a result, [people] now stare at computer screens of mind-boggling complexity, as they juggle messages, text documents, PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets and Web browsers all at once, writes New York Times journalist Clive Thompson. 20 years ago, an office worker had only two types of communication technology: a phone, which required an instant answer, and postal mail, which took days (Thompson, 2005). We are now at a juncture, a generation into the digital age, when we can critically assess which work and learning behaviors are really making us more effective, and in what ways the quality of our work and thought have deteriorated.

the usefulness of multitasking depends on what your meta-goal is when you are doing it.

The Nature of Multitasking

Q: Are todays pings the same as yesterdays rings? A: No! Todays high-speed, untethered, inexpensive, memory-rich communications via computer or cell phone are qualitatively different from communications a generation ago. Not only do the pings and twitters from post-modern communications interrupt more frequently than the wall-anchored telephone did when we were in high school, but also, today, the work and socializing interface is frequently the same (the computer and cell phone). People are under the illusion that they literally do things simultaneously when they work and play with multiple interfaces at the same time. In fact, however, the notion that multitasking means doing things simultaneously is a myth. You dont actually do multiple things simultaneously. You ask the brain to switch gears. And switching gears takes time, reduces accuracy, and in many cases, is simply less efficient than working on tasks sequentially. Researchers at the Federal Aviation Administration and the University of Michigan observed this. They studied patterns in the amounts of time lost when people switched repeatedly between two tasks of varying complexity and familiarity. In four experiments, young adult subjects switched between different tasks, such as solving math problems or classifying geometric objects. The researchers measured subjects' speed of performance as a function of whether the tasks were familiar or unfamiliar, simple or complex. The measurements revealed that for all types of tasks, subjects lost time when they had to switch from one task to another, and time lost increased with the complexity of the tasks, so it took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Whether [we] toggle between browsing the Web and using other computer programs, talk on cell phones while driving, [we]. . . are rapidly switching between tasks all the time (Is Multitasking More Efficient, 2001) Choosing what to focus on and when to switch is the prioritizing skill, also called the mental CEO or executive function. Multitaskers are constantly shifting focus and activities ("I want to do this now instead of that") and activating different brain rules, ("I'm turning off the rules for having a social conversation and turning on the rules for analyzing an Excel spreadsheet). Goal shifting and rule activation help people unconsciously switch between tasks. But each shift takes several tenths of a second which can add up when people switch back and forth repeatedly between tasks. Therefore, the usefulness of multitasking depends on what your meta-goal is when you are doing it.

Page 4

Multitasking and Flow

Multitasking helps learning when a person is synthesizing multiple related inputs to solve a complex problem. Put another way, the time spent switching from one relevant input to another is a worthwhile investment in solving a complex problem. It is a poor time investment when inputs interrupt and/or distract the brain from the main goal of the activity. Even worse, distracting multitasking inhibits learning and higher order processing.

Learning facts and concepts will be worse if you learn them while you're distracted."

Multitasking and Distractions

Studies of office workers have consistently found two things: first, that the work environment is characterized by multitasking, distractions and interruptions. And second, that once workers who are multitasking go away from a task, they forget what they were doing before the interruption. They become further distracted by the technological equivalent of shiny objects (Thompson, 2005). adversely affects the brain's ability to learn. Participants in the study, who were in their 20s, performed a simulated weather-prediction activity which was essentially a memorization and classification exercise. In one round of the experiment, they learned without any distractions. In a second round, they performed a simultaneous task: listening to high and low beeps through headphones and keeping a mental count of the high-pitch beeps (Foerde, Knowlton, & Poldrack, 2006). While the distraction of the beeps did not reduce the classification accuracy of the predictions people could learn the task either wayit did reduce the participants' flexible knowledge about the task during a follow-up session. On the task they learned with the distraction, they could not extrapolate, that is, predict patterns that were not the direct result of memorization. The fMRI scans performed on participants suggest that the learning actually took place in a different part of the brain, in the striatum instead of the medial temporal lobe (MTL). The medial temporal lobe, made up of the amygdala and the hippocampus, is essential to memory formation and learning. The striatum is thought to be a more primitive part of the brain that registers information. This result demonstrates a reduced capacity to make inferences from memorized information (Foerde et al., 2006). In real life, this means that students like Daniel, Jens Biology student who just loves to listen to rock and roll while studying, are learning less effectively than students who study without distractions. Focused learning leads to flexible learning. As the UCLA researchers concluded, learning facts and concepts will be worse if you learn them while you're distracted" (MultiTasking Adversely Affects Brains Learning, 2006).

In one study conducted at Microsoft, a team of researchers installed software on volunteers computers that would virtually shadow them all day long, recording every mouse click. On average, they juggled eight different windows at the same time, and they would spend barely 20 seconds looking at one window before flipping to another. It typically took study subjects 25 minutes to get back to the task they were doing before the interruption--people literally forgot what they were doing. We are so busy keeping tabs on everything that we never focus on anything, says Thompson. Distractions also wreak havoc with our working memory because they shift the learning process at the neurological level away from the frontal cortex to a part of the brain that cannot infer. Here is some evidence: A UCLA Study in 2006 found that multitasking to manage distractions

Page 5

Some Distractions are Better than Others

Certain types of interruptions and distractions affect working memory more than others. This is important to educators who seek to help young people develop study habits that maximize learning. One study conducted in 2006 at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, shows that some types of distractors decrease activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC): this means that you not only lose what you were working on when you are distracted in certain ways, but you also lose some executive function. In this study, subjects looked at a photo of a face for 3.5 seconds, and then were shown two distracting images for 3 seconds each. The distractors were classified as scrambled, (the visual equivalent of white noise) neutral, (a distractor similar in facial content to the original face, but boring in content) and emotional, (a distractor in which faces were shown in dramatic context, designed to elicit emotions such as fear and anxiety). The subjects was then prompted with a face and asked whether they recognized it as the original photo of a face (Dolcos & McCarthy, 2006). When the distractor was scrambled, the recall was good; when the distractor was faces but lacking in emotional content, recall dropped; but when the distractor was faces with emotional content, the recall was worse still. This correlated with fMRI evidence showing decreased activation of the DLPFC (where working memory is located) and increased activation of the Amygdala (the emotional center of the brain). In practical terms, this means that if the distraction is similar to the task, working memory is impaired. And if the distraction is emotionally charged and similar to the task, then the performance declines even more (Dolcos & McCarthy, 2006). This information is surprisingly significant from a teaching and learning perspective. Jen and I know from our work as classroom teachers that adolescents favorite study breaks and pastimes these days involve emotionally charged text from interactive pastimes such as Face Book and texting, precisely those activities that inhibit the consolidation of memories from their studies, which most of the time are text based.

What Does an Effective Study Break Look Like?

Does that mean that people shouldnt take breaks from their work and studying? On the contrary: the brain does need breaksand sleepto consolidate learning and memory. Adolescents (all of us, actually) need to learn to take the right kind of breaks: study breaks that rest the tired part of the brain do help strengthen memory traces. But study breaks (distractions) that add more load to the tired part of the brain are time consuming, stress-provoking, and actually impair learning and memory.

Study breaks that rest the tired part of the brain do help strengthen memory.

Page 6

Adolescents Are Less Equipped To Manage Distractions Than Adults.

When I present information to my students from the UCLA study about the effect of distractions on a persons ability to use learned information flexibly, I often get a reaction of disbelief: I can manage distractions and learn just as well. Or Ive been doing it for such a long time I am good at it. People like you cant because you are older. Jen and I get similar reactions from educators and parents at workshops where we present this material. Many adults are convinced (or fearful) that adolescents are wired differently because of their exposure to digital technology and therefore adults have little purchase in the debate over appropriate use of it with teenagers. In fact, people who use a lot of technology do get neurologically wired differently from people who donthuman brains become wired in response to whatever they do. Daily exposure to high technology stimulates brain cell alteration and neurotransmitter release, gradually strengthening new neural pathways in our brains while weakening old ones. Digital technology is altering how we feel and how we behave. A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that people 8-18 years of age expose their brains to an astounding 8 ! hours of digital and video sensory stimulation a daythats a big effect! (Zimmerman, 2008). A 2009 study of multitaskers abilities showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory. This led to the surprising result that heavy media multitaskers performed worse on a test of task-switching ability, likely due to reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task set. (PNAS 2009 106:15583-15587) In other words, heavy multitaskers are less able to prioritize and sift information than light media multitaskers are.

Heavy media multitaskers are less able to prioritize and sift information than light media multitaskers are.

Adolescent Emotional Self-Control: the Amygdala!

Adolescent brains differ from adult brains in other ways as well. The brain continues to physically develop into early adulthood, and the prefrontal cortex, the area of the executive function, is one of the areas that is the last to developin young men, this process is not complete until they are in their late 20s. Because their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed, adolescents are, among other things, more responsive to emotional stimuli, and less able to override emotional reactions, than adults are. In other words, just saying no to an impulse is harder for teenagers than it is for adults because the part of the brain that does that is neither as developed on a cellular level or as trained on a behavioral level. Many studies have demonstrated this. In one study that looked at emotional self-control, subjects were told to press a button when they saw a photo of scared face, but not when they saw one of a calm face. Experimenters used a wide range of facial expressions (calm, scared, angry, happy). fMRIs of the subjects showed that adolescents amygdalas were more active than adult amygdalas in response to the faces throughout the experiment, meaning that they were more emotionally stimulated. At the same time, when the amygdala was activated in the teen subjects, there was less activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that would override emotional stimulation. In short, teens are more susceptible to decreased activation of the DLPFCtheir executive functionin response to emotional stimuli than adults are.

Page 7

Are Young People Just Wired Differently?

People who use a lot of high-tech devices and use them at the same time develop abilities that are enormously useful in our information- and communications-rich world. For example, digital multitaskers can swiftly focus attention, analyze information and almost instantaneously decide on a go or no-go action. Digital natives react more quickly to visual stimulation and they have better peripheral vision. People who use digital devices and switch rapidly from one to another increase their ability to sift information; they can cope with the massive amounts of data that make many digital immigrants feel overwhelmed; they are developing neural circuitry that is customized for rapid and incisive bursts of directed concentration. And their ability to multitask with fewer errors improves with practice (Small & Vorgan, 2008). But a recently completed research at the Institute for the Future of the Mind at Oxford University challenges the belief that adolescents are better multitaskers than adults: in this study, a group of 18to 21-year-olds and a group of 35- to 39year-olds were given 90 seconds to translate images into numbers, using a simple code. The younger group actually did 10 percent better when not interrupted. But when both groups were interrupted by a phone call, a cell phone short-text message or an instant message, the older group matched the younger group in speed and accuracy. The reason for this is that the older people think more slowly, but they have a faster fluid intelligence, so they are better able to block out interruptions and choose what to focus on, said one of the lead researchers on the project (Westwell & Sharples, 2007). What is fluid intelligence? It means that older brains are more efficient than younger brains, because neural pathways that are repeatedly traced are strengthened both through pruning, where the unused pathways wither away and the repeatedly used ones grow, and through myelenation. In myelenation, the neural pathways that are repeatedly used develop sheaths, sort of like electrical insulation, that speed the travel of information down those pathways and discourage alternate routes. This is essentially what fluid intelligence is: adults have practiced certain tasks, behaviors and ways of thinking, and they can easily access these pathways. Adolescents are still developing the pathways of fluid intelligence.

Girl with Pearl Earbuds, http://mentalhygiene.com/ index.php/2007/11/

Adolescents are. . . more responsive to emotional stimuli, and less able to override emotional reactions, than adults are.

Is FaceBook Addictive?
Digital media are all about emotions and relationships to adolescents. Many people constantly seek the next ping, ring or pop-up communication. In their free time, adolescents dive into their FaceBook communications, their online gaming, YouTube, often immersing themselves for hours in those worlds. Many adults do the same, though Blackberries replace regular cell phones, Twitter supersedes iChat, and LinkedIn augments FaceBook. Researchers are now exploring the evidence that the always-connected behavior that some people demonstrate around their digitally-mediated relationships is addictive, with all the hallmarks of reward-tolerance-harm patterns that characterize other addictions. Getting pinged, twittered, and tagged makes people feel good. It feeds peoples ego and sense of selfworth, and, for many, getting constant reinforcement in this way becomes irresistible. Over the short term, neuroscientist Gary Small believes,

Page 8
constant monitoring of communication from a variety of digital sources may boost energy levels and augment memory. The hormones that are secreted when we are pinged and when we troll for digital connection dopamine, cortisol and adrenaline protect the size of the hippocampus in the short term, which is important to memory and learning. But our brains were not built to sustain such behavior for extended periods so over time, according to Small, such behavior, with its associated secretion of stress hormones, actually impairs cognition, leads to depression, and alters the neural circuitry in the hippocampus, amygdala and prefrontal cortex-the brain regions that control mood and thought (Small & Vorgan, 2008). Small has termed this unique type of brain strain, techno brain burnout. A December, 2009 New York Times article, which featured a number of Bay Area high school students, reported that many teenagers, especially girls, are recognizing the huge distraction Facebook presents the hours it consumes every day, to say nothing of the toll it takes during finals and college applications, according to parents, teachers and the students themselves. (NYTimes, 12/20/09)

Techno-Brain and Emotional IQ

Ever see or hear of a group of teens getting together and spending their time texting each other. . . while they were in the room together? A number of neuroscientists who study adolescents are questioning the impact of this way of socializing on young peoples ability to develop deeper face-to-face relationships. UCLAs Patricia Greenfield, for example, cites studies exploring whether online friending results in increasing number of social relations and fewer long lasting relations? We know, she says, that face to face interaction triggers important human reactions including empathy which happens as a result of people looking one another in the eye. Is the increase in digitallymediated socializing resulting in a decline in empathy? Gary Small echoes the concern.

The Sleep Connection

Adolescents who have computers or cell phones in their bedrooms frequently leave them turned on day and night. (Bradley, 2006). Some say they are regularly woken up in the middle of the night by a ping! from a computer or a vibration from an incoming text message that they respond to. One girl freely shared with me that she literally takes her cell phone into her bed with her: its her alarm clock, to be sure, but its also her connection to her world, and she talks and texts at all hours. Understanding the powerful connection between technological distractions and lack of sleep is the final goal of this article. In order to help our kids develop better sleep habits, we need to understand what about technology inhibits those good habits, and just how important sleep is to learning and performance. Unsurprisingly, adolescents who have televisions or computers in their bedrooms tend to use them more and get less sleep than adolescents who dont. Study after study has shown that kids who watch TV or play videogames get less sleep and report being tired during the day. Other studies associate heavy screen time with obesity, sleep phase shift (feeling tired later) and a wide array of learning problems (Banks & Dinges, 2007; Bronson, 2007; Spinks, 2002; Zimmerman, 2008; University of Haifa).

Page 9

Inadequate Sleep and Performance in School

Lack of sleep correlates with weaker cognitive performance. A reputable 2003 study showed that A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development (Bronson, 2007). This study assessed the effects of modest sleep restriction and extension on children's neurobehavioral functioning. A group of 77 4th-6th graders had their sleep either reduced by 30 minutes or extended by 30 minutes, for a total differential of one hour for three nights. Their neurobehavioral functioning was tested: while the sleep-restricted kids slept better, they reported less alertness, and their neurobehavioral functioning measures showed significant differential effects, of as much as two grade levels (Sadeh, Gruber & Raviv, 2003). Less sleep also correlates with lower grades, and those correlations really spike in high school, when there is a steep drop- off in adolescents sleep. Dr. Kyla Wahlstrom at the University of Minnesota surveyed more than 7,000 high schoolers in Minnesota about their sleep habits and grades.Teens with As averaged about fifteen more minutes sleep than B students, who averaged eleven more minutes than C students, who slept on average ten more minutes per night than D students. These statistics were an almost perfect replication of results from another study of more than 3,000 Rhode Island high schoolers done by Brown Universitys Mary Carskadon. Why?

The Impact of Inadequate Sleep on Brain Function

As Po Bronson, author of Snooze or Lose, a powerful and well-researched article on the sleep-learning connection for teenagers explains, fatigue leads to impaired executive function, less impulse control, and repeated errors. On a very basic level, Sleep loss debilitates our bodys ability to extract glucose from the bloodstream. Short of fuel, the part of the brain which suffers the most is the prefrontal cortex, the center of executive function. Among the executive functions are the orchestration of thoughts to fulfill a goal, the prediction of outcomes, and perceiving consequences of actions (Bronson, 2007). Tired people have difficulty with impulse control, and their abstract goals like studying take a back seat to more entertaining diversions like social networking. Additionally, writes Bronson, a tired brain perseveratesit gets stuck on a wrong answer and cant come up with a more creative solution, repeatedly returning to the same answer it already knows is [the wrong one]. Jen and I found it helpful to understand what was happening in this case on the neurological level. Functional MRI scans of brain cells from sleepdeprived and well-rested animal subjects show that activation of brain cells in the prefrontal cortex during a working memory/long term retention task was higher in well-rested subjects compared to sleep-deprived ones, and higher performance was correlated in this study with increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The sleepy, fuel-starved brain simply lit up less than the well-rested brain. When we drill down to the cellular level, we can see what this means. Well-rested neurons (brain cells) respond very robustly to a stimulus. They pass the stimulus on; this results in neuronal connections and growth. Sleep-deprived subjects neurons do not. They have lost their plasticity. When neurons lose their plasticity, their ability to respond and grow as a reaction to a stimulus, then they are not learning (Kopp, Longordo, Nicholson, & Lthi, 2006).

Page 10

Sleep Habits: Effect of Extended Sleep Loss

If sleep restriction for three nights results in marked cognitive decline in 8-11 year olds, what are the effects of extended periods of inadequate sleep? Those cognitive declines linger far longer than people realize: adolescents simply cant make up for a week of limited sleep by sleeping in on the weekends. One study showed that seven days of poor sleep reduced attention for up to a week after the sleep restriction ended. In this study, subjects were told to stay in bed for 8, 6 or 4 hours (TIB). They did this for 7 days. Each day of the test they were given a psychomotor vigilance test. Lapses continued to increase even after they returned to regular sleep patterns (Banks & Dinges, 2007).

Computer/TV Screens and Late Sleep Shift

A final note on sleep: why do adolescents go to sleep so late? Why is an 8:00 am school start time so difficult? Inadequate sleep surely plays a role. But the unintentional shifting of circadian rhythms that results from evening hours spent in front of screens does as well. Sleep habits can be improved when we understand the active role we can play in encouraging our bodies to feel sleepy at the right time. We know that light affects circadian rhythms and, in particular, teenagers sense of not being tired. Because of their developmental stage, adolescents are more sensitive to disruptions of their hormones, including melatonin, than young children or adults are. In a growing body of studies, researchers are finding that the light levels equivalent to those emitted from computer or TV screens delay the secretion of melatonin in experiment subjects for up to 3 hours, and that adolescent subjects experience a wider range of disruption of their melatonin than young child or adult subjects do. When Jen and I read about this research, we began experimenting on ourselves, our families, and sharing this information with our students. We noticed that when we were tired in the evening and sat down at our computers to work, we experienced a boost of

TIB = Time in Bed PVT = psychomotor vigilance test. Horizontal dotted line = performance after 1-3 nights of no sleep Vertical dotted line = end of sleep restriction.

energy that enabled us to work for several hours after our initial sense that we were tired. Conversely, we found that when we turned household lighting down in the evening to just what was needed for reading or household tasks, and when television and computer screens were off in the evening, we and our children fell asleep rapidly and slept well. One ninth grader at our school decided to do some research on himself and go without his computer for a week. He wrote an article about his experience for the school magazine. Throughout the week. He reported, I noted several advantages derived from not using computers. I began to feel sleepier earlier. . . I was not entirely sure whether I enjoyed nodding off at 8:30 pm. . . . about an hour and a half earlier that usual. He reported feeling more fatigued before nine oclock than he felt normally at ten. Further, he wrote, In the morning, when I awoke, I felt more refreshed and rested (Head-Royce School Hawks Eye, May 2009). In short, we may have the ability to inject energy into our work with artificial light, but our bodies still need rest, and when we deprive it of rest, it functions suboptimally.

Sleep habits can be improved when we understand the active role we can play in encouraging our bodies to feel sleepy at the right time.

Page 11

Good Sleep Habits are Powerful

Inasmuch as inadequate sleep has profound effects, the effects of good sleep are profound! Good sleep has been shown to correlate with many other things that improve learning: increased neurogenesis, better mood, better health, including less obesity, increased memory of facts, superior ability to use facts to reason, improved attention, more creative insight, improved auditory learning, fine and gross motor skills. Behavioral studies have even shown that people choose to undertake more challenging tasks when they are wellrested, though the tired subjects are not aware of the fact that the tasks they choose are easier.

Establishing Healthy Family and Community Norms

What if families turned the lights down and the screens off at 9 pm? What if homework tasks after 9 were focused on paper? What if every family had a cell phone basket in a central location where everyone put his or her cell phone to rest for the day at an appointed time, say, right before dinner? We know that electronic devices significantly affect adolescents behavior and use of time. Some of these effects are good, including an increased ability to communicate with one another, to switch gears rapidly and to process massive amounts of information. But many other effects are deleterious: an addiction to social networking and texting for the zing of dopamine they provide; a wiring of the prefrontal cortex away from sustained focus and ultimately the experience of flow; time spent online that takes away from sleep; and a declining ability to cultivate faceto-face relationships. People think they become more adept at multitasking with practice, and teens appear to be better at it than older adults because they do it so much. But the neuroscience research tells us that efficiency and accuracy training aside, there are costs associated with multitasking no matter who does it: these include stress, the phenomenon of continuous partial attention, and the fact that deep learningthe kind from which creative insights can be gained does not occur when a person is learning under conditions of distraction. Evidence from fMRIs also tells us that adolescents are less able to mediate distractions than older adults are because the wiring in their brainneuronally less pruned and myelenatedis simply not in place. Families and schools can both embrace technology and set appropriate limits on it to maximize health, learning and productivity. As Winifred Gallagher says in Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life, we should not blame technology for adolescents (and adults) diffused, fragmented state of mind. Rather, we can harness our own ability to use attention to select and create truly satisfying experiences by selecting the inputs to which we pay attention and with which we spend our time.

People choose to undertake more challenging tasks when they are well-rested, though the tired subjects are not aware of the fact that the tasks they choose are easier.

Page 12

Here Are Some Things You Can Do

Encourage adolescents to practice prioritizing their time and information inputs 1. Educate whoever will listen about the impact of distraction on learning 2. Help adolescents to figure out what kinds of brains they have as far as distraction is concerned (should be part of finding out what kinds of learners they are); some can manage limited distractions; most cannot. 3. Help younger teenagers to assert their needs with their peers: role-playing, scripting, etc. 4. Teach adolescents about mirror neurons. Face-to-face communication develops connections, empathy. Phone-to-phone communication is not the same. Establish rules that limit distracting multitasking 1. Keep communication with adolescents openoutright bans generally do not work 2. Set a bed time 3. Set a time to turn off screens, cell phones and iPods that is at least one hour before bed time 4. For adolescents who cannot resist online distractions while doing homework, have them place their laptops outside their rooms, or, if homework involves computers, have the screen face adults in the room. (Some people we know have kids and adults share home office space and sit next to one another.) 5. Take TVs out of the bedroom. Help screenagers get adequate sleep 1. Educate whoever will listen about the impact of inadequate sleep on health and learning 2. Discuss the EASY positive benefits of increasing sleep (better athletics, higher grades!) 3. Exercise, especially out of doors 4. Turn off the computer, TV, and phone (eek!) a couple of hours before bed 5. (and knock off the Red Bull) 6. Turn down the lights 7. Model good sleep behavior 8. Provide positive support for and enforcement of good sleep practices. Other ideas to consider 1. Put together a fact sheet to distribute to parents and/or kids 2. Ask young people: What does it look like when you study? Have them thinking about: when do you learn best? Hey, how about this week we ALL do homework with the TV off? a. 24-hour or week-long media diet b. Increase awareness: sleep/screen time logs c. Be aware that young people dont always know what works best for them, so force them to study without what they think they need to study effectively and see what happens. d. Compare the results with the distraction and without. 3. Place personal limits on email use to better empathize with young people: if you are always checking your iPhone, you send a message about no-boundaries. The kids are watching! 4. Turn off pings on personal computers.

We can harness our own ability to use attention to select and create truly satisfying experiences by selecting the inputs to which we pay attention and with which we spend our time.

Partial List of References

American Psychological Assn. (2001, August 5). Is multitasking more efficient? Shifting mental gears costs time, especially when shifting to less familiar tasks. APA Online. Retrieved October 29, 2007, from http://www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html. Banks S, & Dinges D. (2007, August 15). Behavioral and physiological consequences of sleep restriction. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. 3(5), pg. 519528. Retrieved December 1, 2008, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed& pubmedid=17803017. Bradley, K. (2006). Internet lives: Social context and moral domain in adolescent development. New Directions For Youth Development, 2005(108), pg. Pages 57-76. Bronson, P. (2007, October 7). Snooze or lose. New York Magazine. Retrieved February 3, 2009 from http://nymag.com/news/features/38951/. Compton, R. (Producer & Director). (2009). Two Million Minutes: A Documentary About Global Education. [film] Memphis: Broken Pencil Productions. Dolcos, F. & McCarthy, G. (2006). Brain systems mediating cognitive interference by emotional distraction. J. Neuroscience, 26(7), 2072-207. Retrieved December 4, 2007, from http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/26/7/2072 Foerde, K., Knowlton, B., &. Poldrack, R. (2006, August 1). Modulation of competing memory systems by distraction. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(31). Retrieved April 22, 2009, from www.pnas.org. Head-Royce School, Oakland CA. (2009, May). The Plight of Technology Addicts: How Computers Affect Our Circadian Rhythms. The Hawks Eye. Kopp, C., Longordo, F., Nicholson, J., and Lthi, A. (2006, November 29). Insufficient sleep reversibly alters bidirectional synaptic plasticity and NMDA receptor function. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(48) pg. 1245612465. Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules. Seattle: Pear Press. Sadeh, A. Gruber, R. & Raviv, A. (2003). The effects of sleep restriction and extension on school-age children: What a difference an hour makes. Child Development, 74(2), pg. 444-455. Small, G & Vorgan, G. (2008, Oct/Nov). Meet your iBrain: How the technologies that have become part of our daily lives are changing the way we think. Scientific American Mind, pg. 43-49. Spinks, S. (2002). Adolescents and sleep: A summary of what researchers know about teenagers need for sleep and why sleep affects memory and learning. Frontline: Inside the Teenage Brain. Retrieved November 20, 2007, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/teenbrain/from/sleep.html Thompson, C. (2005, October 16). Meet the life hackers. New York Times. Retrieved January 27, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/magazine/16guru.html. University of California - Los Angeles (2006, July 26). Multi-tasking Adversely Affects Brain's Learning, UCLA Psychologists Report. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 4, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060726083302.htm. University of Haifa. (2008, September 5). Children With TVs Or Computers In Their Room Sleep Less. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 20, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com- /releases/2008/09/080902102536.htm. Westwell, M, & Sharples, J. (2007). The effects of digital technology on cognition: The impact of interruptions from communications technologies upon the ability of an individual to concentrate upon the task. Oxford Institute for the Future of the Mind. Retrieved February 3, 2009, from http://www.futuremind.ox.ac.uk/research/impact-of-interruptions.html Zimmerman, F. (2008). Childrens media use and sleep problems: Issues and unanswered questions. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved August 22, 2008, from http://www.kff.org/entmedia/7674.cfm