The "catch" in the video was that students believe that they can multitask, but in reality they can only focus on one thing at a time. Students believe that they can focus on many different things at once and that they are masters at it. I believe in the video students were surprised that they were not as good at multitasking as they thought they were. When students try to do many different things at once and neglect doing one thing at a time, the tasks do not get completed as well as they would have if they were given their own separate attention. So, if a student needs to focus on one class, and they are texting their friends, and answering email at the same time, they will not retain some of the important information that is taught during the class. I have experienced this in my own life with my own classes. If I am trying to focus on many different things at one time, all of the things get a little bit of attention, but it takes me longer to complete all of the tasks. It is almost more efficient for me to complete one task at a time.
Instructors can address the catch by maybe running their own experiments with the students and their multitasking abilities. The instructor could assign the students to do an assignment that involves multitasking on one subject. Then they could take the results of that assignment and compare it to the results of an assignment where the students focus on one part of the subject at a time. The instructor could then present those results to the class. After the class experiences the feel of completing the assignments being able to focus on one thing at a time and then having to multitask, the student can than make a decision on which way they prefer learning. I would bet that a good majority of students would prefer an assignment that focused on one part.
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