A recent study on multiasking in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking reminded me of a subject I have long meant to write about: the fallacy of multitasking. Multitasking is a great myth. It would be wonderful to do two tasks at once, but that is not how our brains are wired. This doesn't stop people from pretending that multitasking is a skill or ability. Students often claim that they are capable of surfing the internet while paying attention in class. Job postings often list multitasking as a preferred skill.
At best, our brains work like an old windows computer. Computers claimed to be able to multitask, long before they actually could. That was the claim to fame for windows 3.1, it supposedly enabled users to do two tasks at once. Except it didn’t work; computer processors can only do one task at a time. Advances in computer multitasking have been advances in processing power, memory and software, enabling the computer to switch faster between more tasks. The only way to truly get tasks to run in parallel is to add more processors.
It turns out that the human mind works in much the same way. The study looked at how often people would switch attention between multimedia devices while using two at the same time. For instance, while using a computer and watching television, users claimed to switch attention 15 times during the space of a few commercials. In fact the actual amount was 10 times that. The users were operating in a highly distracted state.
Like computers, people who are better at multitasking, who are able to perform better than others when trying to do two tasks simultaneously, have a higher working memory. These people can remember more information at once. However, even “high” performance at multitasking is much lower than focused performance.
There is a place for multitasking, but is not in the classroom, and probably not in the workplace. People can only effectively multi-task when performance requirements are low or unimportant, like whistling while walking or eating while watching television. The idea that someone could do more than one task at a time effectively, remains a myth.
There is a place for multitasking, but is not in the classroom, and probably not in the workplace. People can only effectively multi-task when performance requirements are low or unimportant, like whistling while walking or eating while watching television. The idea that someone could do more than one task at a time effectively, remains a myth.
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