October-December
Hey—we can text-message while eating breakfast, listening to an iPod, and finishing up homework all at once. Doesn’t that mean we’re pretty adept at the technological demands of today’s lifestyle? After all, some employers list being “able to multitask” as one of the requirements needed in their fast-paced environment. . . .
So, wouldn’t the cultivation of the talent of multitasking mean that for me to make it a regular habit to have a multitasking brain with all my media devices will better prepare me for the job market of the real world and thus promote my temporal happiness and success?
SURPRISE!
According to a recent research, the answer may actually end up being a big, fat NO.
In a study performed in 2009 by the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Stanford University found that, amazingly, college students who, as a habit, constantly immersed themselves in various types of media did not do well in tests of memory and attention. Their task-switching ability was not a good thing, after all. According to researcher Dr. Clifford Nass, “in a nutshell, they’re terrible at multitasking.”
At the beginning of their study, the researchers sincerely believed that heavy multitaskers had some innate ability to excel at handling several tasks at once. The assumption was that they were probably gifted at filtering irrelevant distractions out of their environment.
However, on a simple cognitive test, the habitual multitaskers performed more poorly than people who did not multitask. Further, when asked to switch tasks, they were actually slower than non-multitaskers performing the same assignment.
Another test-—measuring the ability to organize and file information—further echoed the same findings.
The Stanford study appears to indicate that multitaskers are really not good at what they do, probably because of sensory overload which decreases the ability to focus attention, actually causing a suppression of the frontal lobe of the brain.
Media expert Alvin Toffler explains that constant mental stimulation shuts down the analytical processes and ultimately disrupts the ability to face life rationally. The constant stimulation eventually triggers an “I-don’t-care” attitude. Then when it’s time to make hard decisions or exercise disciplined thinking, the person just wants to escape instead of tackling the challenge. Today’s glut of multitasking tools make it more likely that we will voluntarily overload our senses. Overload overwhelms—and our mental acuteness suffers. In other words, the result is that the mind is simply not as sharp anymore.
In a report issued on National Public Radio on October 2, 2008, Dr. Earl Miller, professor of neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains that, by nature, the human mind really does not multitask very well at all—what actually happens when people think that they are “multitasking” is that they are just tapping into the ability of the mind to switch focus with astonishing speed. But to think that professed multitaskers are actually doing both tasks simultaneously is a delusion—and as Dr. Miller says, the human mind is very good at deluding itself.
Dr. Daniel Weissman, neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, asserts that the brain is able to prioritize sensory information and “muffle” the less important input that is coming simultaneously. So, in essence, regardless of what he or she may think, the supposed multitasker ends up giving less attention to one of the tasks than the others. Something is getting shortchanged—and if it’s a task, something is turning out mediocre.
It may seem that attempting two or more “thinking activities” at once would make you more productive, but in reality it
Slows you down.
Increases the number of mistakes you’ll be likely to make.
Temporarily changes the way your brain works.
While your brain is busily switching its attention from one task to another, you’re actually losing time. It takes four times longer to recognize new things, so you’re not saving time. Multitasking actually costs time, not to mention the extra mistakes it causes. The retention rate in learning is also much lower when trying to multitask. When there are two concurrent goals, the brain essentially divides its attention in half, so each task ends up being performed in a “half-brain” way.
In another study by scientists at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) in Paris, neuroscientist Etienne Koechlin found that study participants asked to perform three tasks not only would forget one of them on a regular basis, but they also made three times as many errors as when they attempted only two. Further, Professor Koechlin also confirmed that those who professed to be frequent media multitaskers actually performed worse on tests assessing the ability to switch from one task to the next. Plus, they had a harder time ignoring external distractions.
So, in an age when text messages regularly ping out at us and e-mails constantly summon our immediate attention, we may feel as if we’re doing more than our predecessors—and in one way we are—but we actually may be getting less done in the process, in spite of all the technological advances. With this in mind, Julie Morgenstern, productivity expert and best-selling author of Time Management from the Inside Out, recently came out with a state-of-the-art guide for planning in the digital age, designed to help people make good time management decisions. Interestingly enough, it involves an old-fashioned, paper-based system!
Why not try working “smarter” by building “screen breaks” into your schedule for at least 1–3 hours at a time? You might decide to avoid e-mails for the first hour and last hour of the day and/or somehow limit the times and hours in which you check your devices. When drawn to an enticing game that would consume your valuable time, just say no. If, deep-down, you feel that somehow you might just be “addicted” to social media and/or mobile devices, turn off the dinger and plan times to say to yourself “Leave it!” just as a dog trainer would command at that crucial moment of temptation in the life of a canine. If you can make sure to give yourself time away from your “screens,” you may actually be more fulfilled.
By choosing your technology time wisely, you can focus more productively. Programs such as Scripture Typer put handheld technology to good use, for the Bible itself is the best “text” the world has ever known. “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). The key here is that the word of God committed to memory, written in the tables of the heart, fortifies against the distractions of the enemy.
“A distinguished man was once asked how it was possible for him to accomplish such a vast amount of business. His answer was, ‘I do one thing at a time.’ . . .
“Henry Martyn, both as a man and a missionary, depended not a little upon his habits of regularity. To such an extent did he carry these, that he was known in the university as the student who never wasted an hour. . . . How many youth who might have become men of usefulness and power have failed because in early life they contracted habits of indecision which followed them through life to cripple all their efforts. Now and then they are filled with sudden zeal to do some great thing, but they leave their work half finished and it comes to nothing. Patient continuance in well doing is indispensable to success. . . .
“Be thorough in all you undertake. Rely constantly upon your Saviour; go to Him for wisdom, for courage, for strength of purpose, for everything you need.”—The Upward Look, p. 146. [Emphasis supplied.]
Do try performing one mental task at a time, rather than two or three. You may be pleasantly surprised. After all, just as we are not to serve the Lord with a divided heart, so likewise to divide tasks may readily cause “halfhearted” results. Let us echo instead the sentiment of the psalmist, “Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name” (Psalm 86:11, emphasis supplied).
Today’s glut of multitasking tools make it more likely that we will voluntarily overload our senses.
When there are two . . . goals, the brain essentially divides its attention in half, so each task ends up being performed in a “half-brain” way.