In this video, Clifford Nass, PhD, a professor of communication at Stanford, discusses research he conducted with colleagues showing girls ages 8-12 who spend endless hours multitasking with digital devices tend to be less successful in their social and emotional development. But the good news, says Nass, is these unwanted effects might be warded off with something as simple as face-to-face conversations with other people.
A Stanford Report article published today offers more details about the study and notes that, while researchers found a correlation between some media habits and diminished social and emotional skills, a definite cause-and-effect relationship has yet to be proved.
Previously: Study shows neural "bottleneck" may limit performance while multitasking and A conversation about our evolving relationship with technology and the dangers of multitasking
