> Other studies suggest that people who frequently “media multitask” (like listening to music while checking email or scrolling through social media while watching a movie) are more distracted and less able to focus their attention even when they’re performing only one task.
This was novel to me. Listening to music negatively affects your ability to focus? I guess it's time to throw out my headphones...
Well, but that article links to "Multicosts of Multitasking"[1], which references studies made on "heavy multitaskers", defined as having high "MMI" scores. What's MMI?
"A high MMI score means an individual engages in a lot of media multitasking (e.g., checking email while also perusing Facebook and watching Netflix), and a low score means he or she does not (e.g., checking email without any secondary media)."
Whoa there - checking Netflix and Facebook are completely different than listening to music, and it should be obvious that the former two are mutually exclusive with performing other tasks (simultaneously) - but that doesn't imply the same for music.
I think that the HN submission page might be making some unsupported claims...