Bradberry and Amicucci express the great ways to utilize social media and warnings on not juggling much to avoid negative cognitive effects.
This week’s articles were pretty interesting and provided a wealth of knowledge in our usage of tools and productivity towards my daily and academic life.
I began with Amicucci’s “Four things Social Media can teach you about College Writing” and then flipped over to Bradberry’s “Multitasking damages Your Brain and Career, New studies suggest”. I’ve been an avid multitasker for more than 10 years being a mom of 3, model, educator, college student and entrepreneur-amongst a host of other things. Despite all of these amazing ‘plates’ I juggle; I pride myself on being able to multitask without forgetting the important stuff.
After reading Bradberry’s article though, I’m thinking about specifically putting that phone away to browse social media and emails while composing my finest college blogs and assignments. Although, Amicucci informed us of four amazing ways to apply the views and ideas of social media to our daily lives as writers and just overall humans; Bradberry scares the crap out of us to focus on one darn thing at a time. Even though picking up our cellphones, scrolling and reading sounds like a great recipe to concoct a few great writing assignments; it’s slowly killing our performance and damaging our brain. Now I can’t lie, I do thee above like clockwork when I’m doing homework. Especially when I tip toe towards good ol’ Writer’s Block.
In retrospect though, Michaela Ramirez provided me with quite a few ways to “prevent” pulling up to this ‘block’ and parking there for hours and hours, but as much as I’d like to avoid it; I don’t. I usually pick up my phone and head straight for social media as a ‘brain break’, watch TV, and chat with my kiddos at the same time. Not even realizing that my multitasking battery is up and yet I’m actually learning at the same darn time. From intertextuality within my lit IG posts to the interdiscursivity in my hashtags and opinion writing; I’ve unknowingly yet proudly joined yet another discourse I didn’t even plan to.
As great as this all sounds and as awesome of a multitasker that I am; I must slow these brain cells down and refrain from the juggling acts on a daily basis. There was a slight sigh of relief when Bradberry informed us that more research is needed to determine if actual physical damage of our brains occurs, however the negative effects are evident. I’d like to think that I’m sharper than a knife on most days, but if being a ‘master multitasker’ will eventually lower my IQ and cognitive abilities; I’ll pass.
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