Multi-tasking kids turn on, tune in

Zach Breslin is very particular about doing his homework every day.

To get in the mood, the Milton eighth-grader first turns on ''The Simpsons" or ''Seinfeld." During commercials, he switches to a video game about football, Madden 2005. Radio stations JAM'N 94.5 and WBCN provide background beats. And computer instant messages from his classmates round out the scene.

Once the Pierce Middle School student is wired, he's ready to work.

''My mom says I need to get a job watching TV for a living because that's all I'm good at," says the 14-year-old. ''I never read, unless it's for school."

To the dismay of a number of educators, psychologists, and parents, (including his mother), Zach Breslin is typical of a young generation saturated by the media.

A study released yesterday by the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C., found that increasingly young people are media multi-tasking -- using television, videos, music, video games, and computers at the same time -- often while doing homework.

The study, ''Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds," found that, because of multi-tasking, kids are exposed to the equivalent of 8½ hours of content a day, which is an increase of about one hour daily from 1999, when a similar study was conducted.

Researchers said they were surprised to find that young people today are using media for about the same number of hours as they did six years ago. But their multi-tasking has increased from 16 percent of the time to 26 percent. Consequently, the total amount of media content consumed has increased.

Meanwhile, they read books, magazines, and newspapers for pleasure an average of 43 minutes a day.

Children's bedrooms have become media centers, with an increased number of kids having equipment there. Fifty-four percent now have a VCR or DVD player in their room, compared to 36 percent in 1999. Thirty-seven percent have cable or satellite TV, compared to 29 percent six years ago. Thirty-one percent have computers (versus 21 percent) and 20 percent have Internet access (compared to 10 percent).

Despite previous research warning that television watching can lead to shorter attention spans, obesity, and aggressiveness, most kids report that their parents have no rules about watching TV, or the limitations aren't enforced all the time.

Observers called the study results a sad commentary on society. Said Jane M. Healy, an educational psychologist in Vail, Colo., and author of ''Failure to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds," ''Multi-tasking is training our kids to do a lot of things superficially and nothing very deeply. Will they be equipped to deal with not only the technological problems of the world but the human problems? It's a grave concern."

Diane Levin, a professor of education at Wheelock College and author of ''Remote Control Childhood? Combating the Hazards of Media Culture," is also dismayed. ''What does it mean to be constantly interrupted in your work? How do you ever get invested in any ideas or thinking?"

To get their results, researchers submitted questionnaires to 2,032 third- to 12th-graders nationwide. Almost 700 of those students also completed seven-day diaries about their media use.

''The big increases in computer and video game use didn't come at the expense of old media, like television," said Victoria Rideout, the researcher who directed the study. ''We don't know if this is good, bad, or neutral. Perhaps young people's minds are being trained to attend to more than one thing at once in a way that the older generation can't. On the other hand, maybe it will have a negative impact on kids' ability to focus. We don't know."

One fallout from the trend can be seen in the classroom. Kids used to the constant flicker of video images across a screen can't help but find textbook lessons rather dry, a frustrating development for teachers.

But some critics suggest that schooling needs to change as a result. ''Why memorize facts when in 10 years you will be asking your wristwatch to recite the Gettysburg Address for you," says Vic Strasburger, a professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico and author of ''Children, Adolescents and the Media in 2002."

Strasburger's teenage son is fond of multi-tasking, a habit he doesn't necessarily oppose because there's been no research indicating it's a problem. But Zach Breslin's mother, Bonnie Sosis, is less sure. She tolerates the noise because her son maintains good grades. But what about the future?

''I'm trying to steer Zach away from a desk job," she says. ''I think Zach could be either a detective or a professional baseball player. He needs something that's going to keep his activity going."

To be sure, none of this would be an issue if Breslin would just shut everything off and hit the books.

''That would be weird," he says. ''It wouldn't feel right."

Suzanne Ryan can be reached at sryan@globe.com