Busting the myths of multitasking
by Celine Roque
There have been many studies conducted on the subject of multitasking. In this fast-paced world, it has become too widespread a phenomenon to ignore for businesses and other purposes. Of course, we don’t really do tasks simultaneously so much as switch our focus rapidly. While it has been shown to actually decrease productivity, a group of researchers at Stanford University were curious as to whether those that tend to mutitask heavily are somehow better at switching their focus. Their paper entitled “Cognitive control in media multitaskers” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
The researchers made a survey of media consumption habits, asking respondents about their tendencies to mutitask listening to music, watching tv, working on the computer, using the phone, and others. Based on their answers, the respondents were grouped into heavy, average, and light mutitaskers. Discarding the in-betweens and focusing on the two extreme groups, the remaining participants were given further hands-on tests to determine their level of attention and cognitive control.
The result was that the heavy multitaskers did much worse than the light multitaskers. The former was more prone to distractions while the latter was better at maintaining focus. Surprisingly, despite their tendency to multitask often, the heavy group were in fact slower in changing task types than the light group. However, the researchers were quick to point out that this “may be a difference in orientation rather than a deficit”, and that multitasking could still have benefits in areas not covered by this particular study.
“With the diffusion of larger computing screens supporting multiple windows and browsers, chat, and SMS, and portable media coupled with social and work expectations of immediate responsiveness, media multitasking is quickly becoming ubiquitous. These changes are placing new demands on cognitive processing, and especially on attention allocation. If the growth of multitasking across individuals leads to or encourages the emergence of a qualitatively different, breadth-biased profile of cognitive control, then the norm of multiple input streams will have significant consequences for learning, persuasion, and other media effects. If, however, these differences in cognitive control abilities and strategies stem from stable individual differences, many individuals will be increasingly unable to cope with the changing media environment. The determination of cause and effect and the implications of these differing strategies for other types of information processing are critical issues for understanding cognition n the 21st century,” the study concluded.
Thought...
