Have trouble media multitasking? Mindfulness intervention helps sharpen focus, study shows
"No one can stay focused on it indefinitely," he says. "When you notice your attention slipping away, you bring it back over and over. You're practicing that skill, refocusing your attention."
Heavy media multitaskers scored worse than light media multitaskers all around and both groups posted better attention scores right after counting breaths. Most critically, though, heavy multitaskers made greater strides than their low multitasker counterparts after breath counting.
Studies have shown that people who most often let several types of media overlap can be distracted in the moment, but also score poorly on tests that assess attention even when the media sources are absent.
That's bad news for performance at school or work, for maintaining relationships and for general well-being.
Juggling the demands of competing media sources has grown increasingly common as music, video, news and messaging creep onto more devices and into more day-to-day activities.
People who often mix their media consumption -- texting while watching TV, or listening to music while reading -- are not known for being able to hold their attention on one task. But sharpening their focus may be as simple as breathing.
"In general, people perform better after this mindfulness task," says Thomas Gorman, first author of the study, which was published April 18 by the journal Scientific Reports. "But we found a significant difference for heavy media multitaskers. They improved even more on tests of their attention."