Multitasking Is a Big Fat Lie
September 24th 2009 22:46
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Multitasking, as most people understand it, is a myth that has been promulgated by the "technological-industrial complex" to make overly scheduled and stressed-out people feel productive and efficient.
Jim Taylor, Computerworld
Understanding Multitasking
Multitasking involves engaging in two tasks simultaneously. But here's the catch. It's only possible if two conditions are met: 1) at least one of the tasks is so well learned as to be automatic, meaning no focus or thought is necessary to engage in the task (e.g., driving) and 2) they involve different types of brain processing. For example, you can read effectively while listening to classical music because reading comprehension and processing instrumental music engage different parts of the brain. However, your ability to retain information while reading and listening to music with lyrics declines significantly because both tasks activate the language center of the brain.
What does this mean for all of you self-proclaimed multitaskers out there? Well, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but it means that what you do isn't really multitasking. Despite appearances, you simply can't talk on the phone, read e-mail, send an instant message, and watch YouTube videos all at the same time. In fact, when you think you're cruising along the information highway, you're actually stepping on the gas then hitting the brakes, over and over.
Serial Tasking
You and every other so-called multitasker are actually serial tasking. Rather than engaging in simultaneous tasks, you are in fact shifting from one task to another to another in rapid succession. For example, you switch from your phone conversation to a document on your computer screen to an email and back again in the belief that you are doing them simultaneously. But you're not.
Compelling Research
A summary of research examining multitasking on the American Psychological Association's web site describes how so-called multitasking is neither effective nor efficient. These findings have demonstrated that when you shift focus from one task to another, that transition is neither fast nor smooth. Instead, there is a lag time during which your brain must yank itself from the initial task and then glom onto the new task. This shift, though it feels instantaneous, takes time. In fact, up to 40 percent more time than single tasking - especially for complex tasks.
Interesting, sin't it, and not only that it is true!
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The other problem is that people call switching from one task to the next, multitasking, this is incorrect, but if it is just a matter of throwing things in the washing machine, while you're doing the vacuuming and perhaps listening to some music and waiting for the cake to cook in the oven, it works well enough.
But in the car, it's a big fat no, and in the work force it is quite unproductive and saps the skills of those who have the ability to perform more difficult tasks uninterrupted by the menial tasks better left to others, one case in point, University Professors and I'm talking about the better ones in the more strict disciplines, sitting at computers, compiling their own correspondence and notes and filling in various extraneous documents, detracting from their thinking time at their higher level of competence.
We are all expected to be typists nowadays, not a good way to go.
Comment by silverautumn
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He pointed us in the direction of a few very interesting articles about the subject.