Gorman Thomas E, Green C Shawn
Department of Psychology University of Wisconsin-Madison 1202 W. Johnson St. Madison, WI 53706.
Sci Rep. 2016 Apr 18;6:24542. doi: 10.1038/srep24542.
Recent research suggests that frequently switching between various forms of media (i.e. 'media multitasking') is associated with diminished attentional abilities, a disconcerting result given the prevalence of media multitasking in today's society. In the present study, we sought to investigate the extent to which the deficits associated with frequent media multitasking can be temporarily ameliorated via a short-term mindfulness intervention previously shown to produce beneficial effects on the attentional abilities of normally functioning individuals. Consistent with previous work, we found: (1) that heavy media multitaskers showed generally poorer attentional abilities than light media multitaskers and (2) that all participants showed benefits from the short-term mindfulness intervention. Furthermore, we found that the benefits of the short-term mindfulness intervention were not equivalently large across participants. Instead, these benefits were disproportionately large in the heavy media multitaskers. While the positive outcomes were short-lived, this opens the possibility of performing long-term interventions with the goal of realizing lasting gains in this population.
近期研究表明，频繁在各种媒体形式之间切换（即“媒体多任务处理”）与注意力能力下降有关，鉴于媒体多任务处理在当今社会的普遍程度，这一结果令人不安。在本研究中，我们试图探究频繁进行媒体多任务处理所带来的缺陷能在多大程度上通过短期正念干预得到暂时改善，此前的研究表明这种干预对正常功能个体的注意力能力有有益影响。与之前的研究一致，我们发现：（1）重度媒体多任务处理者的注意力能力总体上比轻度媒体多任务处理者差；（2）所有参与者都从短期正念干预中受益。此外，我们发现短期正念干预的益处对不同参与者来说并非同等程度地大。相反，这些益处在重度媒体多任务处理者中格外显著。虽然积极结果是短暂的，但这为开展长期干预以在这一人群中实现持久收益打开了可能性。
