A team of researchers linked "multitasking in media", by using several forms of digital media at the same time, to memory impairment.
And in lab experiments, US researchers found that people who participate in multitasking at home have a poor ability to remember items on a computer screen.
Multitasking in media can include simultaneously watching TV while browsing social media on a smartphone and using a laptop for work.
Dr. Anthony Wagner of Stanford University, in the United States, said: "As we progress in life, we have those periods in which we feel frustrated because we are unable to transfer knowledge to the mind, and express what we know."
Fortunately, science now has tools that allow us to explain why, from one moment to the next, an individual fails to remember something stored in his or her memory.
"The things that happen even before you start to remember will affect whether or not you can actually reactivate the memory," Wagner added.
As the result of a research, the researchers explain that our conscious awareness of our attention span and the reduction of potential distractions, such as our smartphones, can help reduce attention lapses and thus impair short-term memory recall.
But ultimately there may also be exercises or targeted interventions to train attention, such as wearable eye sensors that can detect attention gaps in real time based on the size of the pupil.
These actions can be done to redirect their attention to the task at hand to aid in learning or to recall information at work or in a lecture hall, for example.
The study may also have implications for memory conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and could lead to applications for improving attention and memory in everyday life.
Experts stress that they have found a link between poor memory and multitasking in the media, but they cannot say for sure that one causes the other.
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