A typical college classroom is occupied by students doing more than just taking notes. Text messaging, logging on to Facebook and checking e-mail are among the activities students do while trying to pay attention to lectures. But this divided focus can be detrimental to memory retention.Though multitasking is a favorite activity of students trying to maximize productivity and do an ample amount of work in a brief amount of time, a new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says multitasking may do more harm than good.Multitaskers are more susceptible to memory interference by irrelevant details, according to the study.Emily Elliott, psychology professor, said splitting focus makes multitasking inefficient. “The problem is that human beings have a limited capacity system,” Elliott said. “We cannot simultaneously comprehend two streams of information at once.”Elliott compared the brain to a television set: The brain has only one channel, and people must decide whether to tune in to a lecture, an e-mail or some other activity. But changing the channel is what causes problems.”The huge cost is switching [between tasks],” Elliott said.But with so much technology like laptops and cell phones at students’ fingertips, temptation to multitask is great, said Diane Mohler, learning strategies consultant at the Center for Academic Success.”Our society has pushed all of us to do more in less time,” Mohler said. “We say, ‘Look at all this wonderful technology.’ But it’s detrimental to really being efficient in doing things well.”With the desire for and availability of technology, people forget they are paying a price by working on different activities, Elliott said. She conducted a classroom disruption study and found students are easily distracted.In the study published in May, a cell phone began to ring during a lecture. Students were then quizzed on information presented during and immediately after the phone’s ringing. Elliott said information retention and accuracy were lower on the material given during the distraction.Mohler said focusing on one thing at a time is the most efficient and productive way to work.”The latest research says if your brain is engaged in one thing, it doesn’t require as much [effort] to reconstruct that at a later point,” she said.While the presence of laptops in class can be seen as a gateway to multitasking-related distractions, some professors say channeling that type of behavior into a lesson is better than fighting it.”Some multitasking can work,” said Teresa Buchanan, education professor. “As students are writing a paper or listening to lecture, they Google something related to it. We call it ubiquitous learning.”Mohler said the key to quality study habits is finding a personal technique that suits the individual’s learning style.”If you find that using a laptop is difficult or you are distracted, I would suggest preliminarily going over notes, printing them on paper and writing additional notes on the paper copy,” Mohler said.Buchanan agreed traditional notetaking may be the most effective method of learning for some students. “Some people learn best through taking notes,” she said. “I always write notes to keep focused.”Elliott said while some people may be able to train themselves to be more efficient multitaskers, she does not recommend it.”The whole time you’re getting good at [multitasking], you’re missing things and making errors,” she said. “It’s so tempting, and we think we can do it, but we can’t.”—-Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]