Teen Researchers Defend Media Multitasking

Some teens doing homework while listening to music and juggling tweets and texts may actually work better that way, according to an intriguing new study performed by two high-school seniors.

The Portland (OR) students were invited to the annual conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics to present a summary of their research, which analyzed more than 400 adolescents. The findings: Though most teens perform better when focusing on a single task, those who are “high media multitaskers” -- about 15% of the study participants -- performed better when working with the distractions of email and music than when focusing on a single activity. The results are a surprise. Previous research generally has found that people who think they are competent multitaskers actually perform worse than others who try to focus on one thing at a time. But the latest study looked only at teens and is one of the few multitasking-research projects focused on this age group. The student researchers suggest this may explain the different outcomes.