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Teachers must implement strategies to help multitasking teens slow down and think critically.
Technological advances have created amazing opportunities for people throughout the world to access and share information (Friedman, 2005). These opportunities have perhaps helped to create a generation of young adolescents who want to make the most of each minute of the day, seizing opportunities to seek information and communicate at the same time. We now have middle level students who talk on the phone, text friends, play games, download music, watch videos, and write papers for school-and many of these students believe they are adept at doing all of these things at the same time, or multitasking.
Meet GenM, or the "multitasking generation" (Wallis, Cole, Steptoe, & Dale, 2006, p. 48). Now more than ever, students are electronically "tuned in"; and some students are (or perhaps want to be) tuned in during their middle level classes. As research on this phenomenon begins to emerge, it is clear that educators must consider the implications of these GenM practices for their classrooms and help their students slow down and think critically about the things they read and write.
This article focuses on current literature related to multitasking, including information on the characteristics of GenM learners. Pedagogical considerations for reading and writing instruction in the middle level classroom are explored, and suggestions are offered for translating traditional instructional methodologies into more multimedia-rich learning experiences for students. These strategies challenge students to learn when to slow down and critically examine the text or task at hand.
Today's multitasking teens
Researchers have begun to explore the nature of multitasking and its effects. GenM students are generally "tuned in" and tech savvy. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 82% of students are online by the seventh grade (Lenart, Madden, & Hitlin, 2005). Additionally, students spend 6.5 hours per day using electronic media but condense 8.5 hours of activity into that time by multitasking (Wallis et al., 2006, p. 51). Foehr (2006) drew the following conclusions about multitasking:
* Most young people multitask at least some of the time, but others do not do it at all.
* Many young people use media while doing homework, especially if they are on the computer.
*...