Photo by Aldo Gonzalez
“There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.”
~ Lord Chesterfield
In a rapidly changing world today, everyone have so many things to do that we inevitably multitask.
If we do more things at one time, then we would get more done right? And that is why people talk on the phone, while watching tv, doing their nails and performing kegel exercises. If you don’t know what that last part is, don’t worry about it.
But is multitasking really a good thing? Should you be spending time to master this “ability”?
Well, let’s look at the studies shall we?
Multitasking lowers IQ
A study was done at The Institute of Psychiatry at King’s college London. Here’s how the experiment was conducted:
There are two groups of subjects. Group A had to check emails and respond to instant messaging while doing an IQ test while the other did the IQ without any other tasks.
Needless to say, the distracted group scored lower points than the focused group - 10 points to be exact.
But here’s the interesting part. When researchers conducted a similar study, this time involving marijuana instead of distractions, they only found 8 points drop in IQ.
In other words, multitasking lowers IQ more than smoking pot.
Why? No one knows really. There are some speculations as to the reason why which I will explain later on.
Multitasking lowers efficiency
Another study conducted by psychologist Russell Poldrack, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.”
Why?
Because for some reason or another, people use more of the learning part of their brain when they are distracted compared to people who use their hippocampus, the part responsible for storing and retrieving information, when they are focused.
That means when we multitask, we lower our efficiency.
There’s also a concept that you should be familiar with about your grain. It’s called the “inner CEO”. This CEO is like the boss of your brain and it controls where resources go and when.
It’s like a computer. When you’re running a program heavy on resources, you might want to shut down other secondary programs first… or the computer would crash. In that case, you’re the CEO.
A study conducted by Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans found that people lost time when they had to switch between multiple task. Why?
Because your inner CEO had to perform two tasks when you’re switching tasks.
- Goal shifting. This is where your CEO says I want to do this now, not that.
- Rule activation. This is where you CEO decides to turn off the rules for this task and activate it again for another task.
Both tasks, of course, takes time. Rule activation alone take several tenths of a second. It may sound little to you but it can really add up.
If you read that carefully, you’d be able to derive that our brains CANNOT multitask. All we can do is switch between tasks very rapidly. So rapid, it almost feels like instantly.
Plus, Eben Pagan once said that it takes about 20 minutes for you to recover from a distraction to be as productive as you were before there distraction.
Multitasking increases stress
A study conducted by psychologist David Meyer found that “multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline, which can cause long-term health problems if not controlled, and contributes to the loss of short-term memory.”
Another study that I read about a few years ago found that talking on a cell phone while driving a car is one of the most stressful activity anyone can engage in.
So there. The next time you sit down to work, turn off your email client and instant messenger. If you’re like me, you might want to plug out your phone and turn off your cell too! It not only increases productivity, it also increases the quality of your work and the perceived exclusivity of your attention.
Nice article Andre.
I would add that multi-tasking is actually a myth. The brain can only concentrate on one thing at a time. The reason we don’t crash our cars when we are talking on our cell phones is that we can switch between tasks incredibly quickly - faster than you can notice consciously.
But as you point out, this is much much less efficient than doing either alone, and performance and accuracy will suffer. To top it, off multitasking two things will always take longer to complete than doing either separately.
Still, I get push email to my phone, so I’m far from practicing what I preach!
Patrick
Patrick is Very Evolveds last blog post..Flirting with the science of body language
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Gah! We meet again!
I must object! Well… I can’t object because this “multi-task” problem holds true ‘in some occasions’. Thus I will also present a small argument as well.
But first, what holds true in your article:
-Increase of Stress and Time, and Loss of Efficiency.
From personal experience, when I work, my boss would give me a butt load of assignments to do. Normally, I would “focus” on one and when I focus, I shouldn’t be distracted, but all of a sudden, he would make some assignments on priority and I will have to switch thus losing focus, starting all over to get into the zone again but on a different assignment. Reiterating what you said, I just “shifted my goals” and I had to “turn off rule”.
Now Some of my Objections:
-IQ Lowering
I don’t think I am losing brain cells when I am turning off the rule. I am still kicking butt in my job, and if I get the opportunity to learn. I prioritize learning over anything but most likely my production value is going to drop.
And lastly, a different perspective:
You know the time when we are waiting in the “waiting room” when we are at the Doctor’s to get a check up? Well, we are basically doing nothing! (I got to write an “quality” article on this @ dotSpiral. OH SNAP!) That is when I bust out the NINTENDO DS! A lifesaver of boredom, a killer of time, but also a production value of Zero! But since we are not doing anything productively: we might as well make ourself “happy”.
I present, “The Waiting Game”!
The Waiting Game is simple, fun, and easy. Basically, you find any task that makes you wait, and if it does, you find another task to do. This allows you productively to go in two ways. Make you happy, or produce higher production values.
Just like the doctor example before, I could replace that Nintendo DS with a laptop, and just start jamming something productive like writing future articles. Thus making the waiting production of zero turn into something like a hero.
Here is another example: you are on the phone with Sony’s Customer Support because the laptop you bought from them died. The Servicer tells you, “Please Hold”, so now you are on hold (I really recommend a speaker phone for this!). 30 Minutes later, they come back. Now those 30 minutes, I hope you better be doing something because I do not like waiting for nothing! Thus the DS can save butts again! Or if you some other tasks you want to finish, now is the time to do it!
I have more example, but I think I am going to save that for my “qualify” article; I be stealing your visitors but this contribution of a comment should be sufficient!
As for my conclusion, multitask at work is evil. Work is Work. Do not mix in play (unless you are your own boss which I am planning to do). If you are going to multitask, do it while you are waiting on stuff.
And for off topic purposes:
Mr Thomas, I will be around… lurking in the darkness of your blog. You will not like me!
I think.
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I think that more and more people are waking up to the nonsense that is multi-tasking. It’s fine in small doses, when you have tedious work to get through that won’t require use of your brain. But when it comes to real creative work, multi-tasking is poison.
And good point about multi-tasking lowering IQ more than pot. To be honest, I would have expected more than a 2 point difference though.
Trey - Swollen Thumb Entertainments last blog post..Kevin Smith: Filmmaker/Nerd
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@ Patrick - Yup, you’re right. Multitasking is a myth. Though I didn’t state it outright in my post, you could derive it in the part where I talk about the inner CEO.
@ Anraiki - Don’t worry. I like objections. That’s how we all learn. But I don’t get what you mean. When you’re waiting, you’re not actively doing a task and therefore doing another task during that time doesn’t count as multitasking. You could still focus until you’re interrupted by what you’re waiting for.
@Trey - By the 2 point difference, did you mean multitasking should have lowered IQ by more than 2 points compared to pot? Frankly, there’s another study done that showed multitasking lowered IQ more than two times as much when compared to pot.
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@Andre, But I thought Waiting is a Task
Well that beats the purpose of my multi-tasking.
Anraikis last blog post..The Feasibility of a Story
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