Lab-Rat-Ness of College

My response is to the first article. I feel like I am often being experimented on. The author says “When faced with a plethora of information, many people try to multitask, but scientific research suggests that this does not help. René Marois, a neuroscientist and director of the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University, measured how much efficiency is lost when two tasks are carried out at the same time. The first task involved pressing the correct button in response to one of eight sounds, while the second asked subjects to say the correct vowel after seeing one of eight images. When given the tasks one at a time, the participants’ performance for each task was not significantly different. However, when asked to perform the two tasks simultaneously, the subjects significantly slowed in their performance of the second one.” My instant thought went to—“How does this apply to me?” Well, let me tell ya… Three English response essays on top of a communication blog response on top of a Calculus 2 Exam on top of a Biology Test on top of a communication article response on top of a mid-term paper due on top of a Bible mapping project on top of a meeting with the vice president on top of an SGA meeting with the president on top of thirty thank you letters to write on top of getting the information for those letters on top of a meeting with student accounts on top of sending my sister off to VA on top of arguing with financial aid on top of scheduling a car repair on top of doing my Calculus homework on top of work on top of Lab on top of Math lab on top of on top of on top of you name it. So it is scientifically proven that doing two things at a time makes you less efficient than doing one thing at a time—then I must be scientifically distracted so as to be worthless. Sometimes, like now, I am amazed at just how much each one of us really does in a day—every single moment is indescribably complex. I think that I am just a lab rat in the experiment of college that is trying to prove the hypothesis that I can do more and more and more things and still remain good at each of them. To be honest I think that that idea correlates fairly close to this experiment found in the first article—but I do believe that the variables differ greatly, and that it would be hard to find a set control and system of measuring my performance—thus we may have to leave my experience out of the science journals for now.