Is Multitasking Wasting Our Time?
Published: 3 February 2009 Author: Ilike Merey
More is not always better might be hard for us to believe—with all the gadgets and applications available to us today, people are finding themselves doing increasingly more things at once. We drive while talking on the phone, or switch between the report that needs to be done and our instant message window(s). Jobs demand several levels of concentration and if we can do more than one thing simultaneously, we believe we must be getting more done.
Unfortunately, our brains don’t multitask well. An exhaustive study examining the consequences of task switching is not encouraging for the concept of multitasking. Essentially, the study examines “executive control,”—this is the brain function that allows us to make the decision to do a new task and gives us the resources to complete that task.
Subjects were asked to perform and then switch between tasks of varying complexity and familiarity to determine how long it took them to task switch in each situation. While it took longer to switch to tasks that were harder/unfamiliar, the study found that time was lost when subjects switched to any task. When we switch away from our work, even for a seemingly harmless distraction, it takes time … and this only gets worse when we try to juggle tasks of equal complexity.
It’s hard to resist the temptation when technology gives us the ability to multitask in increasingly appealing applications, but focusing on one thing at a time and limiting the amount of communication distractions might be best for raising our effectiveness at home and at our workplace.
References:
- American Psychological Association. (2001) “Is multitasking more efficient?” APA Online
- Rubenstein, J., Meyer, D., Evans, J., (2001) “Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2001, Vol. 27, No. 4, 763-797.
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I agree with this article. I found that in my work, having emails open, a calendar, typing a letter, or working on spreadsheet, took me longer that I thought necessary. When I applied the power of focus in getting one task done, I did it in less time and did not have to retrain my brain into something new. It’s like being an engine, it take a while to warm up. This translates into time lost. The power of focus helps us concentrate on the task at hand help us complete the tasks in a contiguous matter with much more reliability and avoid the chance of making mistakes.
You can’t say multitasking is a waste based on this research. The article admits that they multitask better with familiar tasks. The reason is multitasking various activities is something that you learn to do. Nobody can do it well on the first try. It’s also something that someone needs to do, you can’t just avoid it because you decide it’s not efficient. For example, I have another tab open with the longer version of the article that I’m checking while I also write this comment. Memorizing the article would be WAY less efficient than multitasking to accomplish this.
I couldn’t agree more! Multitasking is a myth in and of itself.
Thanks for pointing out that study. I knew the logic was there, but it helps to have factual references like that. Eric
To spayced–
Yes, I agree that it would be silly to memorize this article
so that you can then make a comment with your full attention in
this tab.
But I would argue that is not multitasking. You are using
this article in another tab
to make a comment (which is your task). If you
were reading something totally unrelated in another tab, now that
would be a different story.
I agree that multitasking does expand the time of tasks if each task was happening in a linear fashion. However since tasks often have peak and valley times, multitasking encourages people to fill the “wait” time with other tasks needing attention.
i. Merey is exactly right. spayced, your “example” is not true multitasking at all.
Also, it’s not clear what it’s an example of.
I think you missed the point.
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