This is one of our continuing series on teens and tech where we help teenagers understand more about learning, attentional, and social emotional concerns and how technology can help them.

Do you take forever to do your homework? Are you always the last one in class to finish tests? Many other high school and college students have the exact same problem. They may have  difficulties with processing information efficiently. Sometimes psychologists and teachers will tell them that they have slow processing speed. The most important thing that you need to know is that this doesn’t mean that you’re not smart. It simply means that some things might take you a little bit longer to complete than you would like. So how can teens improve slow processing speed?

Probably the most important thing to do is to realize that you may need a bit more time to complete stuff like homework, tests, and chores. You’ll probably need to advocate for yourself by asking for more time. But there are also some tools and technologies that can help you to get a bit faster and more efficient. Here are some techs and ideas for teens to improve processing speed.

Play action video games. Believe it or not there is good evidence that action and shooter games can improve processing speed.

Use apps that help you start and complete tasks. 30/30 is a good example of a tool that tells you when to stop something and start something new.

Throw away your cell phone. Not really, but put it somewhere (maybe give it to your mom) for 30-60 minutes so you can focus on your schoolwork.

Featured image: Flickr user Claudia Heidelberger