I don’t understand all the enthusiasm over multitasking. Housewives and business people brag, “Look at me. I’m multitasking,” implying, I guess, that they’re accomplishing more than they could if they only did one thing at a time. Let’s take a look at some research on the subject.
The New York Times recently reported on studies conducted by neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors. Their findings suggested that people should limit their multitasking when working in an office, studying or driving a car. They concluded that driving is the most dangerous time to multitask, as even a one-second delay could be fatal. You don’t say!
The research seems to prove what I’ve suspected all along: You can’t do two, three or four things at the same time and hope to do them well. You might think you are successfully multitasking, but merely attempting to do so doesn’t mean you’re being productive. The time cost of switching from one task to another probably cancels out any time you think you might have saved.
The expression, “If you’re going to do something, do it well” probably seems passé in an age of trying to do ten things at once (none of them very well) and then calling it efficient. But if you’re just “going through the motions,” then you’re not really doing anything at all.
In an age that venerates multitasking, it’s interesting that there also happen to be unprecedented instances of “attention deficit disorder.” In plain English, ADD refers to a lack of focus and attention. Twenty-five years ago I began to seriously question the popular notion that ADD was supposedly only about the brain. Now, mainstream scientists are suggesting (for at least some of the ridiculous numbers of people arbitrarily labeled with ADD) that something might be flawed in that approach. Maybe we’re just dividing our attention among too many things. Goodness knows there are enough things out there to grab your attention! But the fact remains that most people don’t concentrate nearly as well when they attempt to perform multiple tasks at the same time. Could some of these “knee-jerk” ADD diagnoses be nothing more than a convenient excuse for distractions and mistakes?
The Journal of Experimental Psychology elaborates on another consequence of multitasking called “switch cost.” “We found that ‘switch cost,’” according to one of the study’s authors, “increases with the complexity of the tasks. That suggests that a very simple conversation on the phone while driving a car, like ‘Honey, please pick up some bread on the way home’ might not draw too much concentration. But if the conversation becomes difficult or emotionally charged or mentally taxing, like ‘Honey, the house is burning down, what should I do?’, it draws more attention and more mental resources away from the primary task of driving the car: You’re more likely to have a crash.”
All that being said, I believe that the concept of multitasking is nothing more than a rationalization for a bad habit. According to Kaiser Family Foundation research, 16 percent of teenagers claimed they were “media multitaskers,” using several types of media, such as television, radio or computers, at once. By 2005, that percentage had increased to 26 percent. So, instead of telling teenagers, “Trying to study while you’re constantly interrupted makes no sense. Do one thing or the other,” we’re telling them, “Oh, how nice. You’re multitasking. Look how clever you are.” Then, when their strategy fails, we find some trendy label like “ADD” to attach to it, sanctimoniously pretend that it’s medical, and fill them up with pills — when quite possibly it’s nothing more than bad habits.
There have to be rational distinctions, of course, such as the difference between a lengthy conversation and a brief message while driving. But my long-time concerns about multitasking are now supported by research. Because of the way our brains work, multitasking might be more than just a bad idea. It might even be a myth — and, if you’re behind the wheel, a dangerous one as well.