Are we a generation of multi-taskers?

As the Christmas sales begin to rain down upon us, we’re all looking forward to getting our hands on the latest gadgets and toys to hit the smartphone and tablet market.

There’s no denying the appeal of smartphones and tablets – in fact, John Lewis has forecasted that it will sell one tablet every 15 seconds in the run up to Christmas. However, with these increased sales, there must surely be wider markets being reached, and one of the concerns that has arisen from today’s smartphone culture is that children as young as five are delighting in the offerings of these mobile devices.

Indeed, one could argue that they are apt for increasing children’s learning, and many schools are now implementing the use of tablets within classrooms to aid the visual side of teaching.

But are these devices becoming too much of a distraction in the modern day? There is no arguing that the ‘social’ side of social media is infact its undoing – in an age where a pub conversation is populated by friends staring at their phones, we are truly becoming a generation of multi-taskers.

This is something that has not eluded the attentions of marketers either – take for example, the sports betting market. Whilst in days of yore people would have to venture to the bookmakers to have a flutter at Cheltenham, today, folks are being encouraged to use their smartphones to bet while the game or race in question is in play.

It’s not just the sports market either. Earlier this year, thousands of reality TV viewers were delighted to hear that ITV show hit The X Factor would for the first time be offering free votes. The votes, a far more appealing option in comparison to the extortionate phone line or text options, would be available to viewers via The X Factor app.

But if we’re putting all our concentration into playing on our smartphones, are we really watching the aforementioned games or shows? It seems we really can no longer focus on one task in the modern day.

This does not have to be a bad thing however – indeed, if we can focus on more than one task at the same time, we could argue that we’re using more areas of our brains and actually sharpening our IQs.

Whether or not we’re doing our social skills any favours, however, is another matter.