multitasking is a myth...

"Beware of the barrenness of a busy life." - Socrates 

One of the great myths of our time is that multitasking saves time; another is that we are good at multitasking. What the research indicates is that we are deluding ourselves – in reality, our obsessive multitasking is killing our ability to concentrate, analyze, empathize and create.   

Since I’ve never been good at multitasking and am annoyed by this behavior in others, I was glad to hear my suspicions about the inefficiency of multitasking reinforced by a Stanford professor, Clifford Nass, on NPR.

 According to Nass, there is an increasing body of evidence indicating that our nonstop multitasking wastes more time than it saves. Also, engaging in the process of all of this multitasking seems to be changing the way our brains work - the result being that we are becoming increasingly unable to think clearly or well.  

In a recent study, Nass and his colleagues found that multitaskers are terrible at multitasking. They don’t know how to ignore irrelevant information; they can’t keep information in their heads in an organized manner; and, they’re inefficient at switching from one task to another.

Even worse, the mulitaskers have no idea how inefficient they are. They think of themselves as great at handling a lot of information at once - so much so that many keep adding to their already overloaded circuits by ever increasing the stimulus.   

It turns out that everyone has the same amount of attention to allocate and where we allocate that attention makes or breaks us concentration and efficiency-wise. When we multitask, we spread our attention over an inappropriately large span of stimuli, initiating much larger parts of our brains than are necessary to the task at hand. What we end up with is a brain over-engaged in so many things that it becomes under-engaged and inefficient. With this, we render ourselves unable to pay specific attention and without focus, which makes it difficult to file things in our memory in an organized manner.  

Since, anything we do often changes the way our brains work, over time our brains become retrained to multitask, rather than focus. The result is that we become unable to filter out irrelevancy; we can't manage our working memory; and, we’re chronically distracted.

When multitaskers are asked to focus, they say they can turn off everything and concentrate - but, in reality, they can’t. Unfortunately, during all that multitasking, their brains have developed habits that make it nearly impossible for them to be laser-focused on anything. Their brains have become suckers for irrelevancy and they can’t keep on task. Once a brain becomes trained to a new way of thinking, it can’t just revert back. It needs retraining to regain the ability to focus and concentrate.

So far, researchers have not found people who are successful at multitasking. There’s some evidence that a very, very, very small group of people can do two tasks at once, but there's no evidence that anyone can do even three tasks successfully at one time.

It might be easy to discount the work of one researcher, but it seems the conclusion that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits is nearly unanimous in the world of social science research, which is very rare.  

So, what to do in the face of this bleak multitasking news? Nass suggests doing singular tasks 20 minutes at a time. Focus on email for 20 minutes - just email - nothing else. Then focus on Facebook or Tweeting or phone calls or whatever else used to catch your attention simultaneously. Since your brain works more efficiently on one task at a time, not only will this make you more productive, it will also help untrain your brain from that tendency to spread your limited attention over an inappropriately large pool of stimuli.  

Another thing we can do, and this is my idea not Nass’, is rethink the value of “doing nothing.” In times past, doing nothing was okay. Contemplation was a noble activity. Just sitting and watching the world go by occasionally didn’t make us dull witted or out of touch.

 

I’m not sure when doing nothing began to be perceived as a waste of time, but I don’t see that everyone on a laptop or smart phone tweeting, texting, posting, checking email, watching YouTube, etc. etc.is an improvement. Back in the day, people could stare out of the window or look up at the sky or notice their surroundings or, even speak to the person next to them…I don’t’ remember those days as being so bad.

 
Who knows? We just might be pleasantly surprised to discover that every open window of time does not need to be filled – that doing nothing, at times, is not only okay, but restful and even pleasant. Doing nothing used to be a luxury, to be savored and enjoyed…maybe we could go back to a bit of that.

 

Lao Tzu said, “Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.”  And, while that seems like a stretch in our multitasking reality, he might be right…Why not turn off that lap top, set down that smart phone and see what happens…at least for Nass’ 20 minutes or so…