They say there aren't many minutes in a day when they stay unplugged from their social network; although Balimtas said her mother has begun intervening by putting her daughter's phone on "house arrest."
Recent brain research conducted by Marcel Just at Carnegie Mellon University showed that multitasking may be more difficult than we think.
The Carnegie Mellon study used brain imaging to show that when people talked on a cell phone the brain activity that is connected to driving a car diminishes by nearly 40 percent, making it more likely those drivers will not perform as well on the road. The study had volunteers simulate driving while inside an MRI brain scanner. They were then asked questions they had to respond to.
Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, said the research indicates that it is difficult for the human brain to operate at maximum effectiveness while doing several tasks. The distracting task, he said, draws away power, creating something like a brown-out in the brain.
"If you are solving a hard physics problem, maybe that is not the time to listen to your iPod," Just said.
Studies have indicated, he said, that the brain processes language automatically. So when a person hears someone talking, he or she can't shut it out.
The most motivated students instinctively figure out they can't do that physics problem while listening to hard rock and simply take out their ear buds, he said.
But changing the behavior may not be instinctive. Loyola's McGuiness said students who come to her with academic problems often have to be told, "Hey, look what is happening here."
"We tell them they need to put themselves in an environment where they will not be interrupted," she said. The challenge for young people today, she maintains, is learning to limit their use of technology.
"You have to teach them to manage these things," she said.
McGuiness said she began seeing a change in students about five years ago. She and other teachers say the students seem to become fidgety when they are out of communication with their friends. When she walks down the halls today, she said, she sees students rush out of class and immediately flip open their phones. "They are in the habit of doing things in short bursts," she said.
Joanne Cavanaugh Simpson, a Johns Hopkins University lecturer who wrote an article for the Johns Hopkins Magazine on the subject of multitasking, said she saw the problem surface about two years ago, particularly in her larger classes of 20 and 30 students who were trying to use technology secretly.
