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More Bad News About Multi-tasking

Jun 24, 2010 : View Comments
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You might have read the news about how your performance suffers while multi-tasking. If you haven’t, here it is in short: your performance suffers and suffers badly.

There have been hundreds of studies since the 1980s demonstrating this.

For example, Harold Pashler demonstrated that when you do two cognitive tasks at once, that their cognitive capacity could drop all the way from that of a Harvard MBA to that of an 8 year old…*

So, it is no surprise that you do better work when you focus on one thing at a time without distractions.

However, new research points to something far worse…

According to new research from coming out of Stanford University, people who spend long periods of time multi-tasking might lose their ability to pay attention, control their memory, or switch from one job to another.

Even more relevant is that the chosen multi-taskers were “people who regularly deal with several streams of electronic information simultaneously.”

And the irony here is that as you continue to multi-task over time, you lose the ability to multi-task well!

The Study**

100 students were split into two groups:

Group one consisted of regular media multi-taskers.

Group two consisted of people who did not consider themselves to be regular multi-taskers.

Experiment One: Dealing With Distractions

In the first experiment, the two groups were shown two red rectangles in isolation and then shown two red rectangles surrounded by differing amounts of blue rectangles.

Each configuration was shown twice, and the students had to figure out if the two red rectangles had changed position from the first frame.

The results were that the NON-multi-taskers did just fine (they were able to ignore the surrounding blue rectangles and identify a change in position of the red rectangles). The multi-taskers, on the other hand, did not do as well. They could not ignore the distraction of the surrounding blue rectangles, though they were told to do so.

Experiment Two: Memory Control

The next experiment was a simple memory sequence involving remembering sequences of alphabetical letters. The main task was to see if they could remember if a letter was making a repeat appearance.

Again, the multi-taskers did not do as well as the non-multi-taskers.

Experiment Three: Switching Tasks (true multi-tasking skills!)

In order to test whether multi-taskers were actually good at switching from one task to another, students were shown pictures of numbers and letters at the same time and were told what to focus on.

If they were told to pay attention to letters, they had to say whether the letters were vowels or consonants. When told to concentrate on numbers, they had to identify if the number was odd or even.

[There is a link at the end of this article where you can take an online version of this test]***

Again, the heavy media multi-taskers failed in comparison to the non-multi-taskers on an actual test determining one’s ability to multi-task!

Again, the irony is painful. This is a big cognitive price to pay for the multi-tasking lifestyle.

Cause > Effect?

We do not know for sure whether this is correlation or causation. We would need a baseline before subjects decided to live the multi-tasking lifestyle.

Maybe people with these attributes naturally gravitate toward electronic multi-tasking, while people with greater concentration powers gravitate towards single-tasking. My gut feeling is that there is at least some cause-effect going on, but that is just a hunch.

I am not immune…

As I was writing this article, I definitely checked on other things… I answered over 20 emails, took a couple of unscheduled calls, wrote an advertisement and was fiddling around with some new brain software someone just sent me for to review!

Even worse, I was conscious of it, since I was researching this article. But I am sure that 99% of the time, I would not notice myself giving in to these distractions. It is just a way of life.

If you are like me, you pride yourself on this ability. And if you are like me, you are probably also kidding yourself.

Are you immune?

The New York Times has an online test which replicates experiment three. Take it and let us know your results! Click here.

Now, please excuse me while I go check my email.

*Pashler, H. “Attentional limitations in doing two tasks at the same time.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 1 (1992):44-50

**“Cognitive control in media multitaskers.” By Eyal Ophira, Clifford Nass, and Anthony D. Wagner. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 33, August 25, 2009.

***THE TEST
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/06/07/technology/20100607-task-switching-demo.html?scp=1&sq=multi-tasking%20test&st=cse

Tags: Attention, Concentrate, Distractions, Focus, Memory, Memory Control, Multi-Tasking, Multitasking, Switching Tasks, Tasks

Trackback

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  • Comments

    history_buff

    June 25th, 2010 at 3:25 am

    This is bad. I am a high school teacher and I notice a big attention gap from just 15 years ago and it is totally because of computers and all of the social things the kids are doing online. They tell me they are good at it, but I notice it in their school work. They have no concentration at all.

    multitasker

    June 25th, 2010 at 3:26 am

    Funny article, I also am kidding myself!!! Thanks for the article

    Doris

    June 25th, 2010 at 1:23 pm

    MY multi tasking means that the washer and dryer are doing their 'chores' while I focus on my tv show or the dishes…I am from the old school of being in the moment and completely absorbed by my task at hand …even if it is just reading with me!
    MY friends are constantly poushing me to get more done etc…HO Hum….
    I'll do it when the spirit moves me to focus on that task…Smiles, Doris

    Joy Johnson

    June 25th, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    Shoot! I think I flunked! Ok. I'm officially no longer a multi-tasker. Actually this supports a great deal of what I've found in the writing of many of the great minds dedicated to helping business owners obtain peak efficiency – like David Allen in his “Getting Things Done” system. My associate is far more productive than I am. She schedules and blocks off time ahead of time to accomplish tasks – then either complete's the task, or puts it aside to be finished in another block of time. She's probably the MOST efficient human being I've ever seen. She's less than half my age and I count myself lucky to be able to learn from her.

    Linda

    June 25th, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    I would like a good definition in the article for multi tasking. I've found in discussing the topic with my friends, some of us consider multi tasking to be jumping from one thing to another and back without finishing things in a timely manner. Others think it is trying to do things simultaneously and not giving anything full attention (such as listening to music, talking on the phone, and checking emails). Or is it both of these things.

    Pat Sherman

    June 25th, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    Surprisingly, to me, I did better than either the multitaskers or non-multitaskers. Must have gotten enough sleep last night!

    Lori

    June 25th, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    Wow. Apparently the former Queen of Multitasking must relinquish her crown :-( Interestingly, I scored crazy high on the focus test. But very poorly on the multitask test. I guess I must concede that I need to work single-threaded from now on. I wonder – can one recover from being a multi-tasker? I used to be MORE productive (to a point) when juggling multiple things. But – apparently – now it makes me less sharp. Very interesting.

    ToLo

    June 25th, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    Fascinating. On both tests I scored 100% accuracy, but I was slower than everybody in the first test, apparently a bad thing… even though I felt like I was moving pretty fast. The second test was a piece of cake, but then I am an illustrator and spend all day evaluating shapes and their orientations to each other. So I might be a ringer?

    HealingMindN

    June 25th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    That was a fun test. Thanks for sharing. According to the results, I'm the worse at multi-tasking:

    Switching btn letters and numbers took me ave. 2959 ms.
    Repeating same task took me ave. 2234 ms.
    Additional time for switching took 725 ms. ave.

    If I knew the damn thing was timing me, I would have gone faster. I guess I'm stuck to focusing one thing at a time. I leave the rest to my subconscious.

    Joseph

    June 25th, 2010 at 10:25 pm

    I think think this test is tainted based on the fact that we only use 10% of our brains on
    average. If this is the case then how can we know how much more the brain is capable
    of if more of it is developed and used. To me the more brain power you have the more
    not less you should be able to do, including multitasking. Think about this saying a
    person cannot effectively multitask is like saying watching a movie is sensory overload
    because you have to use multiple senses to experience the full effects of the the movie
    especially a 3D movie ie sound, visuals and all of the other multitasking you effortlessly
    do as you use many senses to enjoy it!!!

    JCA

    June 26th, 2010 at 12:43 am

    I spent 27 years in IT and had to be a multi-tasker with 5 or 6 things going at once a majority of the time. Taking the first multi-tasking test I took about 30% more time than it indicated for a multi-tasker. I changed from the mouse to the arrow keys and my time was in the middle of the two results. Since both methods were a valid way to answer I'm curious as to how valid the results can be with that amount of discrepancy in the timing of the answers.

    Thank you for the newsletter I'm enjoying every issue.

    Catbird

    June 26th, 2010 at 3:11 am

    Weellll… I know I don't multi-task well and lately I've been distracted easily. These tests now prove that.
    Juggling Tasks- worse than most multis. I did it in 1500 ms, switching worse than repeating.
    Focus- with 2 blue distractions I got a 100%, with 6 the % was 83.
    Fun test… might take it when I'm more awake.

    Rebecca

    June 26th, 2010 at 7:37 pm

    As a former clinical chemist, I am used to multi-tasking…that is switching between tasks (or instrumentation as the case may be), answering phones in the middle, etc. However, I also had to focus on my one task when completing it. So, in taking these tests, I did not make any mistakes (more critical than speed in my field), but I was slower in milliseconds in the juggle test, similar to a high multi-tasker. Interestingly, I did not show much of a delay in switching between tasks. As for the focus test, I scored 100%; that is I didn't let distractions distract me. In thinking about my background, these are the results I would expect. What I find is that email can waste a lot of time – taken from regular tasks, but it is more efficient than group meetings!

    guest

    June 27th, 2010 at 10:58 pm

    Mothers & other caregivers of multiple small children have been multi-tasking for centuries. What else are you going to do except multi-task when one child is pouring his milk on his sister's head, while another is about to open the drawer where you keep the knives and a third just fell down and bit his lip and is bleeding all over the new tablecloth you just took out to see if it fit the table.

    Donso4

    June 28th, 2010 at 2:18 am

    Excellent – as we are asked to multi-task more and more at work, just show the boss this article and finish the one thing you were working on. Take the advice of Shorty – do one thing and do it right.

    June

    June 28th, 2010 at 4:48 am

    I thought I was a multitasker but it looks like I'm not, since I did better than both low multitaskers and high multitaskers. What I thought was multitasking was actually starting multi tasks but focusing on 1 and completing 1 at a time. Which begs the question, what does it mean to be multitasking as a human being?

    Dinashira2

    July 5th, 2010 at 4:35 pm

    LOVED the article, though I had to take several breaks to attend to other matters. Seriously, I read it to my client because he can never focus on what I'm doing with him.

    Davros Kaled

    July 13th, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    The “only use 10% of our brain” folderol has long ago been disproven, and indeed was little more than a throwaway line by Einstein which became public 'truth' through repetition.

    Blondearrow

    July 13th, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    This is no more multitasking than herding sheep. Holding a cloth to one child's lip while yelling at two others to “Stop That!” is hardly multiple “tasks”, and even less indication that you're actually doing any of these things well.


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