Symposium: Impacts of Media Multitasking on Children's Learning & Development

媒体多任务处理在文献中被定义为在指定的时间内从事多种媒体活动，如看电视、阅读、玩视频游戏或即时通讯。在8-18岁的青少年中，媒体多任务处理是一种越来越普遍的现象，但人们对这种行为如何影响关键的认知、发展和行为过程知之甚少，这些过程影响着年轻人学习、推理、社交、创造性思维和理解世界的方式。先前对成年人的研究普遍表明，媒体多任务处理会对生产力产生负面影响。然而，迄今为止，很少有研究调查儿童媒体多任务处理背后的过程，或者这些过程如何影响认知发展和学习。斯坦福大学CHIMe实验室的Clifford Nass和美国国家科学基金会LIFE（非正式和正式环境下的学习）中心的共同负责人Roy Pea将与Sesame Workshop的Joan Ganz Cooney中心合作，为来自神经科学、儿童发展、认知、沟通和教育领域的主要学者召集一个跨学科小组的研讨会。以及关键的政策领导人，以促进我们对媒体多任务处理对儿童和青少年学习和认知发展的潜在影响的理解。研讨会的主要目标是确定一个连贯的议程，以激发对媒体多任务处理对学习和认知发展的影响的理论基础研究。研讨会将由三个多学科专家小组组成，分别探讨：a)媒体多任务处理与认知发展，b)媒体多任务处理、学习和生产力，以及c)在教育环境中利用媒体多任务处理的设计原则。会议报告将在研讨会网站和印刷版上分发。研讨会网站还将促进新定义的研究界之间的交流和知识分享，并作为关于媒体多任务处理对认知发展和学习的影响的信息交流中心。总体而言，与此拨款相关的活动将有助于激活一个新的特殊兴趣学术社区，并鼓励和促进跨机构，智力和方法学科的知识共享和合作。通过了解媒体多任务处理如何影响学习和认知的心理过程，从业者将更好地为政策提供信息，并在广泛的学习环境中最大限度地发挥教育影响。

Media multitasking is defined in the literature as engaging in more than one media activity, such as watching TV, reading, playing video games, or instant messaging, over a specified period of time. Media multitasking is a growing phenomenon observed among 8-18 year olds, yet little is known regarding how this behavior influences key cognitive, developmental and behavioral processes which affect the way young people learn, reason, socialize, think creatively, and understand the world. Previous research in the adult population generally shows that media multitasking negatively impacts productivity. However, little research to date has examined the processes underlying children's media multitasking or how such processes may affect cognitive development and learning. Clifford Nass of the Stanford CHIMe Lab and Roy Pea, Co-PI of the NSF LIFE (Learning in Informal and Formal Environments) Center, in partnership with the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, will convene a symposium for an interdisciplinary group of leading scholars from neuroscience, child development, cognitive, communication, and education fields, and key policy leaders to advance our understanding of the potential implications of media multitasking for learning and cognitive development in children and youth. The primary goal of the symposium is to define a coherent agenda to stimulate needed theory-based research on the implications of media multitasking for learning and cognitive development. The symposium will consist of three panels of multi-disciplinary experts to examine: a) media multitasking and cognitive development, b) media multitasking, learning and productivity, and c) design principles for leveraging media multitasking in educational contexts. A meeting report will be distributed on the symposium website and in print form. The symposium website will also facilitate communication and knowledge sharing among a newly defined research community and serve as a clearinghouse for information on the implications of media multitasking for cognitive development and learning. Overall, the activities associated with this grant will help activate a new special interest academic community, and encourage and facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration across institutional, intellectual and methodological disciplines. Through understanding how media multitasking may affect psychological processes underlying learning and cognition, practitioners will be better prepared to inform policy and to maximize educational impact in a broad range of learning contexts.