THE TRUTH ABOUT MULTITASKING
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| THE TRUTH ABOUT MULTITASKING |
— Haemin Sunim, The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to Be Calm and Mindful in a Fast-Paced World
ONE OF THE MOST COMMON defences of phones is the idea that they’re making us better at multitasking and, in so doing, more efficient.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. There’s actually no such thing as multitasking (that is, simultaneously processing two or more attention-demanding tasks) because our brains can’t do two cognitively demanding things at once (Yes, we can do the dishes while we listen to the news. But that’s not “multitasking” in the true sense of the word, because one activity is not cognitively demanding). When we think we’re multitasking, we’re actually doing what researchers call “task-switching.” Like cars making sharp turns, our brains need to slow down and switch gears every time we stop thinking about one thing and engage with another—a process that has been estimated to take twenty-five minutes every time you do it.
And I’m not just talking about multitasking at work (though most of us probably intuitively know that checking email when we’re in the middle of a difficult task does not help our productivity). I also mean all the mini-multitasking that we engage in all day long: glancing at Twitter while we’re also watching TV; looking at our email while we’re on a call; even flipping quickly between apps as we wait in line to order lunch. You might think that you’re able to simultaneously listen to your friend and respond to that text. But you can’t.
In fact, we’re often shifting the focus of our attention so rapidly that we never give ourselves enough time to get in gear, to begin with. (When’s the last time you spent twenty-five minutes just doing one thing?) Not only is this making us unproductive, but it’s also affecting our ability to think and problem solve. It’s also mentally exhausting.
And that’s not all. In 2009, Stanford researchers led by Clifford Nass published a groundbreaking study in which they evaluated self-described heavy multitaskers’ ability to perform a variety of tasks. The researchers hypothesized that while multitasking might be draining at first, over time it must make people’s brain better at something. They assumed that the heavy multitaskers in their study would be better than the controls at ignoring irrelevant information, switching efficiently between tasks, or organizing their memories. But according to Nass, the researchers were wrong:
“We were absolutely shocked….It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They’re terrible at ignoring irrelevant information; they’re terrible at keeping the information in their head nicely and neatly organized, and they’re terrible at switching from one task to another.”
Perhaps worse? “One would think that if people were bad at multitasking, they would stop,” said Nass. “However, when we talk with the multitaskers, they seem to think they’re great at it and seem totally unfazed and totally able to do more and more and more.”
Nass’s conclusion? “We worry that [heavy multitasking] may be creating people who are unable to think well and clearly.”
That itself is alarming—especially when you consider that multitasking (or at least trying to multitask) is exactly what our phones encourage us to do (not to mention the fact that Nass’s research was published only two years after the first-generation iPhone was introduced). And it appears that, by weakening our attention spans and our memories, our phones are damaging our ability to single-task, too.
Thanks for reading, As Always,
ANKURJIT KALITA
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