Adult-onset Disfuctional Mental Multitasking (ADMM)

I was often chastised by adults for listening to music or watching TV while I did homework. As I got older, I honestly believed that music or some other "subliminal" noise was keeping the focus of the part of my brain that was easily distracted. The part that would wonder while I was reading, was now focused on the music playing. I was productive, I understood the material, I was conceptualizing, I was retaining.

Now, in the last six months, my ability to listen to music while studying, and retain what I have read is approaching 0. Every now and again, I'm still able to do it, but more and more I find myself having to shut it off. And I do not do so happily. I've tried jazz, blues, classical - piano and cello, folk, I get distracted by all of them. Television is hopeless, unless I really hate the show or have seen it and didn't particularly like it , but those shows are few and far between.

I turned 25 in March. I can see this as the only cause of the deterioration of my mental multitasking abilities.

I would like to think that "practicing" would help, or mental exercises, but isn't that what I've been doing all along, every time I listen to music and study?

I will overcome this. I have to. I don't have to listen to music every time I decide to study or read, but I want to be able to when I decide I want to. I can think of nothing better than listening to Muddy Waters while reading Toni Morrison, or Miles Davis while reading The Great Gatsby or McTeague, Thelonious Monk while evaluating Political Liberalism, Mumford and Sons while practicing solving problems using the quadratic equation. It's all part of the experience that leads to retention.