As technology becomes more and more part of out lives, most people are learning to do several things at once also known as Multitasking. Unfortunately, all of our “multitasking” may have some serious consequences.

Generally our brain can manage two tasks at a time. When you take on a third task, your brain becomes overwhelmed, and as a result, accuracy drops. In a digital context, this drop in accuracy could manifest itself in several ways, including picking extraneous information over relevant or task-related information, having a hard time switching from one task to another, or poorly filtering out irrelevant information.

There are other, more troubling effects of digital stress. When the brain is overwhelmed, it triggers a “fight or flight” reaction, which in turn causes regions of the brain that deal with empathy to shut down. Those who use the Internet excessively may suffer from gray matter atrophy, which hurts decision-making, concentration and goal-setting abilities.