20 reasons Why you should
stop multitasking as soon as possible
1. Based on what we know about serial tasking, multitasking is basically like "stepping on the gas, then hitting the brakes, over and over" (Taylor).
2. Multitasking can be dangerous during activities like driving, operating machinery, cooking, etc., and it can even lead to fatal accidents. 3. "Engaging in an automatic action does not require a significant level of conscious attention. But when the automaticity is interrupted... the impossibility of attending to two things at once is quickly felt and can all too easily lead to undesirable consequences" (Mach 94). |
4. According to Robert Schmerling, "[I]t takes up to 40% more time for people to complete several tasks when they are serial tasking (call it multitasking, if you must, but you now know better) than if they completed these same tasks one at a time."
5. It takes time for the brain to latch onto new tasks when shifting between them, even if it's only for a moment: "Some researchers estimate that a one-minute interruption takes an average of fifteen minutes to fully recover from" (Mach 94). |
6. The brain also has to let go of the previous activity, realize the goals and rules of the new task, and otherwise cut and graft attention from one pattern of thought to another, together known as "switching costs" (Mach 94).
7. Multitasking is even redefining reading, and not for the better: experts classify the act people do online not as reading but as "skimming, decoding, or... power browsing." This in turn affects the way that we read off-line. |
8. According to Devin Zimmerman, practicing multitasking on a regular basis leads to a shorter attention span. This is especially prevalent with the Millennials because multitasking is so prevalent with modern technology.
9. According to information processing theory, there is a limited brain capacity which can be devoted to tasks, with complex tasks taking up more of this capacity than simple or habitual tasks. With this approach, we can see "that multitasking limits audiences' processing of information received from the media as well as their performance on a simultaneous non-media task" (Jeong and Fishbein). |
10. Multitasking isn't effective or efficient because when only devoting partial attention to multiple tasks, you're not going to do any of them very well (at least not as well as they could be done individually).
11. Habitual multitasking makes it difficult to sift through the information overload because it weakens concentration, eases to get distraction, and leads to a "reduced ability to filter out interference." |
12. Mutitasking causes unnecessary stress. According to a University of California Irving study, individuals who multitask have higher heart rates and remain in "high alert" more frequently than people whose access to multitasking is cut off (qtd. in Health Magazine).
13. People who multitask, especially with technology, are much more likely to miss out on what is happening in the here and now. For example, a Western Washington University study found that 75% of college students using their phones didn't notice when a clown was riding around campus on a unicycle! |
14. "If our attention to whatever task at hand can increasingly be characterized as partial due to our compulsive monitoring of what our digital antennae are picking up, we have fewer opportunities to enter the mental state of flow: the optimal state of mental engagement... in which time and all distractions seem to fade away as complete mental immersion takes over" (Jeong and Fishbein).
15. "[S]tudents and workers who rarely achieve this state of mental flow, who are more accustomed to juggling distractions than experiencing full immersion in a single task, are less capable of optimal performance or of coming up with complex and creative solutions to whatever challenges they confront. Their mental resources are divided; they are not fully focused on the task at hand" (Jeong and Fishbein). |
16. In addition to the drawbacks for productivity, multitasking can also affect leisurely activities. Because it "may reduce information processing and inhibit central processing of messages... it is reasonable to expect that multitasking may limit enjoyment experiences in response to entertainment media" (Jeong and Fishbein).
17. The fact that many of these distractions are social in nature is also affecting the individual's ability to engage in the "solitary contemplation and deep reflection made possible when one separates from the crowd and cultivates a rich interior life," says Thomas Mach. |
18. "For Nicholas Carr,... [t]he linking, blinking, twittering diversity of the Net... is making us dumb. The Web is reshaping our physical brains, Carr contends, 'weakening our capacities for the kind of deep processing that underpins mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection'" (qtd. in Weinberger 84).
19. According to Taylor, "[C]hildren perform worse on their homework if it is done while watching TV and employees show greater productivity when they don't check their email frequently. So there is sufficient evidence against multitasking outside of the laboratory as well." |
20. As we've seen, multitasking always has some sort of negative effect, but if you absolutely need to multitask, it's definitely a bad idea to try to do more than two tasks at once because that third added task can overwhelm the brain and cause even more negative effects. According to Eteinne Koechlin, co-author of a 2010 French study on multitasking, "Three-tasking [overwhelms] the capacity of human frontal function" (qtd. in Gardner). The reason why the brain can somewhat handle two tasks at once is because there are two lobes to the brain which normally divide tasks equally, each lobe functioning with different specializations. So, even though multitasking at all has various negative implications, adding more cognitively complex tasks beyond two at the same time is even worse.
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THE ONLY REAL BENEFIT TO MULTITASKING IS THAT "ALL THE MULTITASKING, INTERNET SEARCHING AND TEXT MESSAGING HAS MADE MILLENNIAL BRAINS PARTICULARLY ADEPT AT FILTERING INFORMATION AND MAKING SNAP DECISIONS," SAYS JENEEN INTERLANDI. BUT, ALL OF THE OTHER NEGATIVE EFFECTS CONSIDERED, IS THIS ONE BENEFIT REALLY WORTH IT?