WARNING: Multitasking Can Kill…
Creativity And Meaningful Discussion
“Most of the time multitasking is an illusion. You think you are multitasking but in reality you’re actually wasting time switching from one task to another.” – Bosco Tjan
Right now, you might be reading this blog on your iPad while watching TV and intermittently checking e-mails on your phone. You’re trying to save time by doing multiple things at once.
The truth is, you’re actually wasting time. You may get those e-mails off the unread list and understand what the weather will be tomorrow, but I doubt if you’ll remember much of anything from either this blog or which EU country has fallen off their fiscal cliff this week.
Multitasking is something everyone does these days. It’s hard not to multitask, given all the things we have to do and all the non-stop streams of information coming at us. Typically, we have a minimum of two e-mail accounts and as many as five or six. We have LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr to check on, as well as Pinterest, Fancy and Elsy. We have check notifications from a multitude of other sources that ping into our lives at an alarmingly frequent rate.
OK, I hear you say, so what’s wrong with this? I’m good at multitasking. I can handle it all and get more done. Wrong! At a low level, we can multitask and be effective. But, we are talking about things like conversing with your passenger and following the on board navigation system, or boiling cauliflower while talking on the phone? Not a problem because these multitasks don’t require much brainpower.
Unfortunately, our brains just aren’t equipped for multitasking when the tasks do require brainpower. When you’re trying to accomplish two dissimilar tasks, each one requiring some level of consideration and attention, multitasking falls apart. Your brain just can’t take in and process two simultaneous, separate streams of information and encode them fully into short-term memory.
When information doesn’t make it into short-term memory, it can’t be transferred into long-term memory. If you can’t recall it, you can’t use it. And presumably, you are trying to learn something from whatever you are doing. Instead of actually helping you, multitasking works against you. It’s making you less efficient, not more.
At my last two companies, I attended lots of meetings in which others had their laptops open and were checking their crackberries incessantly. It wasn’t that these people didn’t care about what was being said. It’s just that they had lots of other things to do and juggling several tasks at once seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t. Not only was this behavior rude and discourteous to others in the meeting, especially those talking, but there was fallout.
It became clear that many people were missing important stuff in meetings. They weren’t paying attention to what was going on around them because their brains were otherwise occupied. So the information shared in meetings never had a chance to break into their short-term memory.
Many people think this multitasking is a generation phenomenon. However, I’ve noticed that my daughter, who believes she is an ace multitasker, cannot recall the plot of the TV episode we were watching when she was also checking Instagram… and making roses from duct tape. Their brains are the same as those of adults and have the same limitations imposed by short term memory. Even though your kid boasts she can watch TV and study simultaneously, don’t believe her.