Пересказ текста Generation M коротко It’s 7:30 pm at Lisa’s house and she’s in her room doing her homework. However, homework is just one of the things she’s doing while her eyes are fixed on the computer screen. As well as studying for her Biology exam, Lisa is also listening to music, chatting with her best friend online, downloading songs and occasionally texting people on her mobile phone. “My parents keep telling me off for multi−tasking while studying, but they don’t understand that it helps me concentrate,” she says. Young people today spend a lot of time using electronic media; on average, 7 hours and 38 minutes every day. That adds up to 53 hours a week, more time than most adults spend at work. But that’s not all. Because young people spend so much time ‘media multi−tasking’, that is, using more than one type of media at the same time, they actually consume a total of 10 hours and 45 minutes of media content every day. This is the reason why they are called “the multi−tasking generation” or “Generation M”. But how do our brains deal with multi−tasking? Automatic things like walking and chatting on the phone can be done at the same time, but when it comes to learning new information, multi−tasking has an impact. “Multi−tasking affects how you learn in a negative way,” says Russell Poldrack, Associate Professor of Psychology at UCLA. Dividing our attention between too many activities makes the knowledge we gain harder to use later on. This doesn’t mean we should never multi−task, but it does mean it is not a good idea to do it while learning something new. According to specialists, it is also essential to take time away from electronic media. “At the sound of the bell, all my students reach into their bags and grab their mobile phones to text message their friends. It is as if they’re afraid of silence,” says Casey Roberts, a secondary school teacher. “Their MP3 players, laptops and games consoles have become extensions of themselves. I really think that Generation M should take time to relax and reflect. There’s life beyond the screen, and the pleasure of face−to−face communication can be neither denied nor replaced.” University of California, Los Angeles