I’m always going on about how I can do 100 things at once…research a story, cook dinner, do homework with the kids.
Well, it turns out I suck at everything. At least that’s the findings of a new Stanford University study.
High-tech jugglers are everywhere – keeping up several e-mail and instant message conversations at once, text messaging while watching television and jumping from one website to another while plowing through homework assignments.
But after putting about 100 students through a series of three tests, the researchers realized those heavy media multitaskers are paying a big mental price.
“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” said communication Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers whose findings are published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Everything distracts them.”
OK, I could have told you that. I’m doing everything, so everything distracts me. DUH!
But does that really mean my brain really can’t handle it all?
Possibly.
The researchers split their subjects into two groups: those who regularly do a lot of media multitasking and those who don’t.
In one experiment, the groups were shown sets of two red rectangles alone or surrounded by two, four or six blue rectangles. Each configuration was flashed twice, and the participants had to determine whether the two red rectangles in the second frame were in a different position than in the first frame.
They were told to ignore the blue rectangles, and the low multitaskers had no problem doing that. But the high multitaskers were constantly distracted by the irrelevant blue images. Their performance was horrible.
Because the high multitaskers showed they couldn’t ignore things, the researchers figured they were better at storing and organizing information. Maybe they had better memories.
The second test proved that theory wrong. After being shown sequences of alphabetical letters, the high multitaskers did a lousy job at remembering when a letter was making a repeat appearance.
“The low multitaskers did great,” said Eyal Ophir, another researcher on the study. “The high multitaskers were doing worse and worse the further they went along because they kept seeing more letters and had difficulty keeping them sorted in their brains.”
Not everyone agrees with their findings. A reader named Peter sent me the study and made it clear he wasn’t on board with their conclusions:
As an IT person, I take great exception to Professor Nass’s findings. I call it, one trick ponies testing one trick ponies, testing conducted on college students. What about people in industry working multi-jobs and expected to multi-task.
What do you all think? Can we really multitask or is it all just an illusion? Did my story on Ted Kennedy and my chicken curry dinner really suck last night?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:10 am
I also work in the IT field, but I do believe there is some validity in the study. I believe that the majority of the population does not multitask well, but that some persons will be exceptions to the general rule. Also, I believe there is a disconnect between what the researchers would consider multitasking and what an IT person considers multitasking.
Attentional issues among IT folks are a little different. While there might be some true multitaskers out there, I believe that a large segment of the IT population functions using the “hottest fires” method. They shift their attention and efforts to the most immediate need, work the issue, then move on to the next “hottest fire” on the list. From time to time, issues are missed (balls get dropped, to mix my metaphors), customers complain, and then the issue becomes the newest “hot fire” to be addressed.
It’s a method that appears to be multitasking, but it isn’t. I’ve see that all too often during my 16 years in the industry. Heck, I’ve even been guilty of it at times. That’s why IT help desks have call management systems and escalation matricies–to make sure balls don’t get dropped. Many successful IT people may not be classic multitaskers in the sense that they can simultaneously complete multiple tasks at one time. Rather, I believe many successful IT people are those who can switch to the highest priority task at a moment’s notice, hyper-focus on completing that task, and then move on to the next important (but not necessarily urgent) item. That is different that true multitasking (dividing one’s attention between multiple tasks at once) and the “hottest fires” method.
As someone with ADHD, I use the “hottest fires” method in most areas of my life. In my career, it has been one of the things that has helped me to be successful. When customers came to me with their problems (Alert! Hot Fire!), I would focus all of my attention on them until the issue was resolved. Then I would move on to the next issue (Another Hot Fire!). Sure enough, when things did fall off my radar, they became hot fires that got my attention and were resolved quickly. Doing that helped keep a lot of situations that could have gone bad (due to time constraints, etc.) from becoming disasters.
Just look at recent laws placed on the books (and recent news articles) regarding cell phones and driving. No matter how good someone claims to be at doing both at the same time, there is almost always an impact. The cell-phone weilding driver may be inattentive to traffic. From other studies, [I apoligize that I do not have the citations handy.] it has been shown that cell-phone weilding drivers who knowingly try to mitigate their perceived lack of attention to their driving tend to drive slower than other drivers, creating an accident risk. Drivers who really concentrate on the road often miss or misunderstand parts of the phone conversation.
The study seems to confirm that, for the vast majority of persons, we function at sub-optimal levels if we try to do two or more things at once. I do believe, however, that such deficiencies can be overcome–in some cases–by practice. I’ve always been a skilled singer. I also became a skilled guitarist. It took me more than a year of practice to be able to sing and play together without simplifying the guitar music (so that I could maintain each instrument’s own rhythms and melodic components).
Okay. I’ll get off my soap box now…
August 27th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
@hikingStick
Please stop reading my mind!!!
You must see two very distinct distractions as I do. Our brain is wired from the first neurological impulses to multitask and often involuntary. Your idea of being able to strum a guitar and sing in accordance to actual chorded sequence is a learned attributary reaction. I have very rudimentary musical ability. I have also attened several live concerts, I enjoyed this in my youth, and because I had the ability to be musically inclined, I was often disappointed in the misses and the missed changes that happen constantly during a live event. It was always about the atmosphere. Sometimes it is fun to hear and catch those mistakes. People who are not so inclined, have no clue as to what I am saying.
Now as an IT man, you have to consider that you are working with the same concept, though it is brain versus artificial brain. The reactionary sequencing is always going to more correct with the machine.
The driving aspect is sincerely a personal mission of mine. My son had a ‘walkman’ when he was in High School. He played football and ran the 800 in track, While practicing, his walkman cassette tape holder cover came loose, he looked away for about half a second while running and smacked into a guardrail and fell thirty feet sustaining a broken leg, broken wrist and deep lacerations. He competed, however he was not the same after he healed. I have to drive sveral miles a day because of the nature of my work, I would advocate making any device except perhaps a radio illegal. Witth texting, it is dangerous. I’ve seen young tens texting while riding bicycles. I’ve seen others walk literally to the middle of the road while texting.
I believe it is true, it is not so much the juggling, it is the relevancy
August 27th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
BTW, Eve, did you put the final question about Kennedy and curry in there just to see if we would “multi-task” enough to address both points in our replies. I saw the first request first (Hot Fire!), and did not even notice your request for feedback on your previous writings until I revisited the site this afternoon.
I have mixed feelings on Kennedy, so I decided to pass on making any comments. I really could have rambled there.
August 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
HAHAHA. i was multitasking while writing about multitasking and wanting my readers to multitask. yikes.
August 27th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Thanks for your feedback, Robert. Actually, in thinking about it a bit further, only recent advances in computer hardware have really allowed the machines to truly multitask (due to the introduction of multiple processor cores that may simultaneously work on different processes). Prior to that, computers only appeared to multitask because the switch between processes happened faster than we could perceive (and this is still likely the case with multi-core machines due to other hardware bottlenecks, but I know I’m already losing many readers here, so I’ll just leave it at that). The CPU visits each process in turn, according to assigned clock cycles. The faster the processor, the more clock cycles per second. So, in reality, computer hardware does not really multi-task as much as it switches between assigned time-slices on a rapidly recurring schedule.
August 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
HikingStick’s last post brings us closest to the now-forgotten secret of “multitasking.”
It was a term coined to market personal computers in the late ’80s, and eventually became a casual part of the lexicon.
Because the word existed, the concept casually transferred over to human activity in the ’90s — although that never actually made it any easier for the human brain to pull off.
I’ve always believed most brains were never meant to multitask. You’ll invariably meet someone (or someone who knows someone) who is the stimulus-addicted exception to this rule (see “overachievers”), but for most of us there is no substitute for concentration and focus, which are sadly underrated these days.
Maybe that’s because focused people only tend to pay attention to one medium or product at a time, thus limiting the potential for sales of more media and products. Just a thought, but I came up with it in a quiet room, without listening to or watching anything else as I typed.
August 28th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
John, the fact that you are commenting on a post that is a day old already says much about your ability to concentrate on those things you find important, rather than just the latest news item.
As for me, I just…oh, wait…I see a squirrel!…
…We’re we just discussing something?
August 28th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I knew my blog was read by a bunch of squirrelly.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Hmm…should I take that as a compliment, or an affront?
;)
August 28th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
a joke perchance.
August 28th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I caught it. I just decided to see if I could drive you nuts.
August 28th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
@John
‘’…stimulus-addicted exception to this rule (see “overachievers”), but for most of us there is no substitute for concentration and focus, which are sadly underrated these days.'’
Right on,Bro, RIGHT ON!!
@HikingStick
Did the squirrel have goggles?
@Eve
HAHA!