If You Want to Learn, Remove the iPod Buds

In truth, better advice would be put the iPod / instant messenger / TV / phone / chatroom / YouTube / Xbox down and walk away from them . . . because a new study has established they are a distraction while you are trying to learn new material.

A study published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences--"Modulation of Competing Memory Systems by Distraction"--explains that we have two means of learning: declarative memory and habit learning. Habit learning is what happens when you dial a phone number 20 times and then suddenly have it memorized and can punch it in without thinking. Declarative memory is a more conscious form of learning--as if you looked up a phone number once, determined to memorize it, and then were able to recall it when you needed. As it turns out, we can recall and use the things we learn through declarative memory with much greater flexibility than the facts we learn through habit learning.

The study in PNAS finds that distractions interfere with declarative memory. A news story on the study explains it this way,

The problem, Poldrack [the lead investigator] said, is that the two types of learning seem to be competing with each other, and when someone is distracted, habit learning seems to take over from declarative learning.

"We have to multitask in today's world, but you have to be aware of this," he said. "When a kid is trying to learn new concepts, new information, distraction is going to be bad, it's going to impair their ability to learn."

It turns out your parents were right: turn off the TV and concentrate on your homework.

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Above photo: Silence, please, a Flickr photo originally uploaded by .Lara.