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Show SpecialFeatures Page 18 Friday, Aug. 28, 2009 Call yourself a multi-tasker? ‘Multi-taskers’ are more easily distracted, study finds (LAT) — Are some people wired for multi-tasking? Do their brains work differently than those of folks who are able to concentrate on a single activity despite myriad distractions? Apparently so, according to a study in this week’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Stanford University researchers recruited 19 undergrads who were heavyduty multi-taskers -- they were at the top of their class in their ability to read, watch TV, listen to music, send and receive text messages, check their e-mail and surf the Web simultaneously -- and 22 others who rarely did two or three of those things at once. Volunteers in both groups submitted to a battery of tests. It turns out the single-taskers do a better job of filtering out irrelevant stimuli compared with the multi-taskers. To measure this, the volunteers were asked to gauge whether a red rectangle had changed its orientation on a computer screen without getting distracted by a bunch of blue rectangles. The more blue rectangles there were, the worse the multitaskers did. But the distracting rectangles had no effect on the single-taskers’ performance, the study found. As further evidence that multi-taskers are prone to distraction, a second test found that changing the color of letters that flashed on a computer screen caused them to take 77 milliseconds longer than single-taskers to decide whether they were looking at the letter “X.” (The multitaskers were just as accurate, however.) Other exercises found that multi-taskers have the same problem when it comes to cluttering their working memory with extraneous stuff. Presumably, someone with a lot of multi-tasking experience would be quite skilled at toggling between two tasks. To test this, volunteers were shown a letter and a number together on a computer screen. They were asked to decide whether the letter was a consonant or a vowel or whether the number was even or odd. The researchers found that it took 167 milliseconds longer for the multi-taskers to switch between the letter and the number tasks than it did for the singletaskers. Taken together, the results certainly seem to indicate that multi-taskers “approach fundamental informationprocessing activities differently than” single-taskers, the researchers conclude. But why? Does a history of multi-tasking make it difficult for people to focus? Or do they become multi-taskers because they are naturally attracted to a range of stimuli? That question remains unanswered. But the answer is important, especially for single-taskers. Although they performed better on the tests, it’s clear these modern times favor those who can manage multiple forms of media at one time. If it’s hard for single-taskers to adapt, they might “be increasingly unable to cope with the changing media environment,” the researchers concluded. APA Report: 30 percent of college students experience depression Perfect Partner. Let us help plan your big day. Your Best Choice for Wedding Invitations & paper goods 630 West 20 0 Nor t h 753-8875 (LAT) — The American Psychiatric Association reminds students and their parents that although college can be a time of great hope and exuberance, that’s not always the case: Its 2008 American College Health Association Survey found that 30 percent of college students reported that at some point in the last 12 months, they had felt so depressed it was hard to function. And 49 percent reported that in the same period, they had experienced overwhelming anxiety. Ten percent of those surveyed said they had been diagnosed or treated for depression, and 6 percent reported that they had seriously considered suicide. And a study published in December 2008 in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that alcohol disorders affected roughly 1 in 5 college students. The nextmost-common class of disorders were personality disorders, affecting about 17.7 percent of college students. We know from the Web site Active Minds, devoted to “changing the conversation about mental health” on college campuses and to providing mental-health resources to college students, that an average of 1,100 college students die by suicide each year. Sure, there’s beer-pong and all-night partying. But there’s crushing pressure as well, and it can take a toll on students’ mental health. (To find an Active Minds chapter, or start one on your campus, go to www. activeminds.org and click on “Chapters.”) Glen Beck soars, despite boycott By Matea Gold Los Angeles Times An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator’s viewership has grown. Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his thirdlargest audience since his show launched on Fox News in January, according to Nielsen Media Research data provided by the network. On Tuesday, nearly 2.7 million viewers tuned in, his fifth-largest viewership to date. And the conservative host got a plug from former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who urged people to watch his program in a post on her Facebook page. “Fox News’ Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House,” she wrote Wednesday to her 800,000-plus supporters. Color of Change, a black political advocacy group, organized the boycott last month to protest Beck’s comment that he believes President Barack Obama is a racist. The group succeeded in securing commitments from at least 36 companies that have pledged not to advertise on his show, including Wal-Mart and Sprint. Some, such as AT&T and Procter & Gamble, were not Beck advertisers to begin with, but their ads mistakenly had appeared on the program. Representatives from those companies reiterated their request not to have spots during his show. As a result, few major businesses remain as sponsors of Beck’s eponymous program. On Wednesday, the only big companies with a presence during his show were Bank of America and The Wall Street Journal, whose parent company News Corp. also owns Fox News. The rest of the commercials included spots for gold seller Rosland Capital; Ashley Furniture Home Store; Empire Carpet; Liberty Medical, a diabetes medical supplier; Johnson Law Group, an asbestos litigation firm; “Shadow Government,” a new book critical of Obama published by the National Republican Trust; and the antitax group TeaPartyExpress. org. Fox News insists that the boycott has not affected its revenue, as advertisers have just moved their commercials to different time periods. Beck appears invigorated by the challenge. “Even if the powers to be right now succeed in making me poor, drum me out . . . I will only be stronger for it,” he said on the air Wednesday. “And I will use American ingenuity and my ingenuity to pull myself up, and I will find another way to get this message out, on a platform that will be a thousand times more powerful. Because of my faith, I know how this story ends. The truth will set you free.” Since returning from a weeklong vacation Monday, Beck has not explicitly addressed the boycott. Instead, he has launched a weeklong series called “Reasonable Questions for an Unreasonable Time,” in which he has argued vehemently that the Obama administration is being infiltrated by radicals seeking to undermine the U.S. Constitution. “I have demonstrated that these radicals are not only instrumental in shaping legislation that is being jammed through at light speed, they are also by invitation personally advising the president of the United States,” he said Wednesday, calling them “radical wolves that are about to devour our republic.” One of his most frequent targets is Van Jones, special adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. In 2005, Jones co-founded Color of Change with James Rucker, the group’s executive director. Beck supporters have charged that Color of Change launched the boycott of Beck’s show in retaliation for the host’s criticism of Jones. Rucker said Jones has not been associated with the group for more than a year and had nothing to do with the boycott. “I didn’t even know Van had been a subject of Glenn Beck’s sustained attacks until after we had launched the campaign,” he said. “I can say absolutely there was no involvement by Van or the White House. Beck has made these claims that are not fact-based and he needs to change the subject, and that’s what this is all about.” Beck began railing against Jones earlier this summer, dubbing him one of 32 “czars” with unchecked power in the Obama administration. He repeatedly has called him a communist, citing a 2005 profile of Jones in the East Bay Express that described Jones’ shift from a radical-activist past to more mainstream politics. On Wednesday, he made reference to the fact that Jones named his son after African guerrilla leader Amilcar Cabral. “Should you have a communist, self-avowed revolutionary who named his 4-year-old son after a Marxist guerrilla leader, should that person be advising the president of the United States?” he asked. Concealed Firearms Permit of Utah 7ZXdbZ AZ\Vaan 6gbZY Logan- Thurs September 10th 6 pm-10 pm or Logan- Sat September 12th 8 am-12 pm Law Enforcement Firearm Instructor Dex Taylor Sign up online at www.CFPofUtah.com or call (435) 757-2717 |