I’ve been calling this environmental ADD for years and while I don’t consider myself a good multitasker, when I attempt it one or both or all of the things I’m juggling suffer.

One of the reasons I like flying is that it’s a time for me to catch up on back issues of The New Yorker or listen to podcasts of this show and other NPR shows I missed during the week (I fly a lot). When US carriers finally get wifi going on planes it will be wonderful, however, it will also mean that I’ll lose my unconnected time to dig deep, read slowly, and catch up.

Multitasking makes it quite difficult to read slowly and deeply and long enough to form a considered opinion. Well, we form many opinions but I’m not sure how considered they are given the pace of many of our daily lives.

This brings to mind my two favorite words. “Slow down.”

Is it self-defeating to listen to this show while working?

Scientific research shows that fully focusing on a task to the exclusion of others increases over sense of wellbeing. People report feeling happier and more content when they had read a book or written an article or cooked a meal with full and unintereupted focus;getting lost in the task so to speak. IT may be that seratonin is elicited as the brain becomes more focused and therefore there may be a biologigical etiology for the consequential feelings of contentment.

It must be stated that no multi-tasking should be practiced while operating a vehicle in traffic, whether stopped or in motion. Multi-tasking while driving is blind driving and is a threat to public safety.

“It must be stated that no multi-tasking should be practiced while operating a vehicle in traffic…”
Posted by Len Haze

Operating a motor vehicle is, per se, a multi-tasking activity.

What we need is help appreciating meditation, as opposed to “useful”, rapid turnover of competitive,conceptual imagery. We all want to achieve happiness, but it doesn’t come from winning in competition with others, but as an old Taoist (Chuang Tzu) said, “You never find happiness until you stop looking for it.”
We’d all live better if we more often practiced
the zen advice of “Now, here, this!”; living focused in the present moment.

Todd, I was not aware of the requirements for operating a vehicle. Thank you for your enlightened qualification of my statement. Sure. Operating a vehicle is a TASK that requires complex decisions, keen observation of prevailing conditions, correct timing of exectution of manuvers, interpretation of signage, careful attention to pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists, and much more. Any task not immediately and directly related to the operation of the licensced vehicle serves only to IMPAIR the driver from driving in a responsible, mature, and safe manner. I am certain the readers understood the the meaning of my statement, including yourself.

Why so suprised? Weren’t we taught in school (the 50’s and 60’s) to pay attention, concentrate, and finish one job at a time? Multi-tasking…just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

After 30 years of observing human behavior I am comfortable saying that no one multitasks. They only think they are.

Even a computer system that does “multi-tasking” is just churning through cpu cycles and sharing the cycles among many applications so fast that it appears to be doing things simultaneously. Not even computers do two things at the same time.

So when will we stop trying to be what we are not. We are better off trying to be human than being machines. The idea that we can do this is a fallacy perpetrated by people who do not know any better.

Great show!

et

What about mothers? moreover, working mothers?

So should I not work at my desk and listen to NPR at the same time?

In this world where watching network news can drive you to drink (how many times do I need to hear about swine flu?), and someone bored might be advised to do their situps or wash the floor, I found my salvation in Sudoku. It allows me to sit still for even advertisements, also long speeches. And as a bonus, a big bonus, I get to scribble in the margins factoids, names, which is neat. I tend to remember best if I’ve scribbled it down anyway.
I have graduated out of Sudoku and am trying crosswords for boring stretches, or to shake out my brain after a mental tussle with my work.
That works too. The shifting is important. Work two hours. Use the brain otherways for a break.
Of course I am doing other things now. I’m billing, packing, making disks, keeping records, keeping more records, all sorts of “mindless” stuff.
I’m conserving the concentration time for special periods.

I believe that our mind can only acknowledge one thing at a time but sometime it works so quick and it seems as we can do multiple thing. I kind of agree with the professor. We can’t not do two things a the same moment.

Its interesting that the students are defending their multitasking by saying that they have no choice. Unfortunately, whether or not they ‘have to’ multitask has nothing to do with the fact that the study revealed that they are being less effective by multitasking.

“I am certain the readers understood the the meaning of my statement, including yourself.”
Posted by Len Haze

Often in err, but always certain, huh? The intent of my post wasn’t to nullify the spirit of your comment; but, rather, to draw a finer line regarding what society considers an acceptable level of “multi-tasking.” For example, should we ban manual transmissions in cars, because it requires the operator to perform an additional task while driving? My point is, we should be careful to define multi-tasking before opening a Pandora’s Box of proscriptions to regulate them. Drive safely Len!

The end isn’t multitasking, the end is getting the the things done you’re doing.

If people can get the all the things they’re doing in parallel done with the same quality they’d have if they did them serially (one at a time) then all power to them.

I think what this study is showing is that there is a quality drop-off in accomplishment.

By the way, I can hardly listen to Tom talk right now and consider what I’m writing here the way I’d like to.

We are encouraged to use electronic data management devises and smart phones to be “better organized. There are people who are organizationally challenged and really need practical help.What is known about the challenges of multi-tasking for adults w/ ADD?

Have to agree with the “kids”
As a mom of 50 something, I can’t multitask successfully.
My 18, 20, & 22 year old children can multitask without missing a beat. They can write a quality term paper while responding to text messaging, eat a sandwich and listen to their ipod. Occasionally they actually respond to their mother, too – but i have to pull the plug out of their ear

I think multitasking is particularly useful & effective in certain situations…particularly when doing routine tasks that do not require a particular set of attentive skills.

Our schools educate in a multitask environment, using “multimodal” methods.

Employers put more value on people who can produce more quantity and often structure responsibilities around that concept.

i have a boss who emphatically refuses to believe multitasking is hurting the performance of our business. multitaskers will never understand the deterioration of productivity until years and years after retirement.

At the end of the day. I heard that statement as part of your discussion on multitasking. Doing many things in short time slices may affect REM sleep. The real loss may be in how the brain replays the day’s activity for permanent storage.

What gets sacrificed is depth of thought. If you are balancing cooking dinner and listening to the news, this is a non-issue. If you are trying develop a theory to explain the cause effect issue of multitaking behavior, you will do better without watching Heroes at the same time. You will do better if you ignore your email for an hour or two in order to have uninterrupted thought. Think of the “great ideas in the shower” phenomenon. It makes sense that those who are chronic multitaskers have developed a habit of being satisfied with a shallow, cursory understanding of the available information.

The term “multitask” needs to be better defined. Is watching over a baby while also cooking a meal considered multitasking? Is listening to the radio while also typing a comment on the onpoint blog? Multitasking to one person may not mean the same thing to someone else.

As a nurse in a busy inpatient surgical unit , multitasking is necessary. It is also extremely stressful and in my view, a pretty unhealthy way to spend 12 hours.

The discussion seems to be missing the point that there are many, many daily tasks — regarded as single tasks — that require multitasking.
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Driving a vehicle (without talking on the cellphone at the same time, thank you) requires paying attention to multiple other moving vehicles and pedestrians at once while also operating hand and foot controls. Playing a game of baseball or football, for crying out loud — a good player is aware of the actions of multiple other players. Playing a keyboard instrument — reading music, playing multiple musical lines at once and even signing at the same time. People do these things for *fun*, even. Sure, some people are better at it than others.
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The discussion also seems a bit flat in that it doesn’t note that we address the challenges of multitasking by overlearning some actifocus attantion on others.

This is bad news. I am constantly multi-tasking, constantly on the damn computer. Here I am doing it right now. I work from home. I have to make a lot of phone calls, I’ve got three phone lines! Constant messages, meetings I have to go to, constantly on.

I think this is today’s lifestyle, unfortunately or fortunately. Sometimes I think the Amish have something with their suspicion of technology.

I am a student getting my terminal degree. I am 29, and I returned to chool at 27. It is hard to multi-task. I don’t have the same level of concentration I did before the internet became so vital. We are encouraged to check our email several times a day things get posted in the middle of the night so there is a lack of schedule. So listening to a 2 hour lecture without doing something else becomes very hard. Your brain always feels as if you should be doing something else.

Hmm, maybe I was listening to the radio too attentively while proofreading that last message of mine

Cool subject. I would remind everyone that multi-tasking has several definitions. Take a jazz drummer for example. He is drumming yes, but his right hand is doing something completely independent of his left hand as are both feet. So in that case one person is doing four different things simultaneously. I suggest that this type of multi-tasking is very different than listening to TV, radio, reading, being on line at the same time. It is a very real time in the mone t activity requiring much concentration and practice. Most people can’t even do two things independently with both hands.

The neurologist has it. The brain can only process so much at once and it’s a matter of how much we’re able to dim out the background stuff so we can process the foreground task adequately.

The two students can do it but they’re not correctly evaluating the quality of the foreground tasks they’re doing. I also think they’ve become addicted to the extra stimulation and maybe habitually can’t do work without some background noise.

Iam 45 years old. I was diagnosed with ADD at 30. My brain is alawys changing channels.Even before all this technology Idid several things at once. Now that I have a blackberry I get email imediatly. I was driving slow on a back rd soIm ashmed to say I replied while driving. I couldn’t help it. I do feel as a mom working at home, I have to multitask. However now while listening to this show and typing this from my chair at home, I’m wondering if I really need to concentrate on one thing at a time. To develope better concentration. Are you taking into concideration if they already have ADD or not??

I listen to NPR while doing craft work (shop work repairing pipe organs. I seem to be able to keep track of these two DIFFERENT things fairly well.

However, when I try to work on email while listening (to a weather report or news story) I tend to either miss the listening side (can’t revall the weather forecast) or pause emailing to listen to important items.

Maybe it’s easier to do two DIFFERENT things (words/craft for example) than to do two similar things (words listening and words reading/typing). What do our researchers think about this angle?

Back to the craft work!

I coach professionals dx’ed with ADHD. They tend to believe they are excellent multi-taskers. I make an important distinction that they may be excellent multi-reactors, managers, and responders but not taskers. Task to me implies some form of completion. Creative product completion (paper, proposal, etc.) requires focused attention, energy and resources.
Tending to twitter and news feeds is not multi-tasking it is multi-tending. Big difference! When something noteworthy comes thru then attention is turned to that feed.
Cameron Gott
ADHD Coach

Well, when people listen to music/radio does that that affect them when working? anything more than two or three things is that bad?

Recall that multi-tasking originally referred to process concurrency in computer operating systems. The required context switch that separates processes contending for CPU time is computational overhead, i.e. “busy waiting” wherein nothing of use to any process is accomplished. I believe the human brain works similarly, albeit with higher absolute latency and greater relative overhead.

I am interested if Dr. Just has tried any similar driving studies using music in the headphones instead of someone talking. Is the brain able to process classical music at without taking away concentration from driving, of would you see a similar reduction?

Mary, I think it depends on how much processing each input needs. Music might not need the same kind of attention as listening to Tom and this show.

The young guest just talked about filtering and I do think some folks have an innate or learned ability to filter and put the important task up front.

The question is, even with effective filtering, will the young guest get the same amount out of an article that she’d get if there were no background noise.

I am a craftsman and a business owner. The business owner in me has to multitask. I find it distracting and never feel as if I am getting things done well. When I am practicing my craft, I find that time fades away and my focus becomes clear. That is why I do what I do, because those times of intense focus as very pleasurable.

“Often in err…” To what does your opening phrase refer to? How “often” have you read my posts? I have to say that your opening phrase makes little sense to me.

I was pretty sure most of the readers here understand that multitasking while driving involves the choice to impair oneself with the use of a cell phone. But obviously I should have been more specific.

It’s a fact that the use of cell-phones while driving increases reaction time by 400%, is linked to hundreds of thousands of traffic accidents and thousands of fatalities. In scientific studies it has been proven that use of cell-phones while driving impairs the driver to a degree that is equal to or great than that of driving under the influence of alcohol. Regarding the use of cell-phones while driving, yes, I believe we should ban them.

These are clear statements regarding public safety and the responisiblity of drivers to be alert and focus on the task of driving. The use of cell-phones while driving is a threat to public safety. My statements refer to cell-phone use soley and specificly and I should have stated that in my first post. I regret that I was not clear enough for some to understand. I’ll be sure to be clearer for some next time.

Some ideas are deep, nuanced and complex enough so just getting the “gist” isn’t enough or may lead to a wrong conclusion.

First off, I’m moderately ADD, so this may not apply more broadly. That said, I’ve found that sometimes I’m most productive when I’m jumping back and forth between non-time-dependent multiple tasks, such as writing a letter or working on a design project, because I can skip around the mental blocks I run into working on a single task. At the same time, I find it very difficult to absorb information from multiple sources at once. So I see a big difference between “productive” multi-tasking and “receptive” multi-tasking. As a result, I’m concerned that heavy multi-taskers end up putting out a lot of their own views without taking in or reflecting on those of others.

A side effect of multitasking that I see, is that the younger generation is desensetized to understanding the full complexity/seiousness of situations when they are having a conversation, playing a video game while texting (for example). It also limits their ability to communicate effectively….

Multitasking is not new. Ask ANY restaurant worker. Many other professions require juggling multiple inputs with multiple outputs.

Multitasking is simply time-slicing your linear brain function, storing and retrieving data for each task as the particular task becomes active.

What about just courtesy? The other underlying message that multi-taskers send is that none of their activities deserve their full attention. They miss subtlety, esp. the human dimension of what people may or may not be trying to communicate.

I wonder about a culture where people feel that it is necessary to work 70 hours a week, and therefore need to “multitask” to keep up. I also wonder why people feel they need to be accessible and connected all the time. I remember the days when time management courses taught us to schedule when we would return calls.

As a teen-ager I had the radio on while doing my homework and talking on the phone to a friend (no computers or cellphones in those days!) As a 30-something, I thought I was a good multi-tasker when PCs emerged in the workplace. In my late 40’s I was diagnosed with ADD. Right now I am trying to listen to the program and write at the same time – I feel very distracted.

While the technology that allows the level of connectivity that is now possible provides us with wonderful options, let’s remember that they are options, and I, for one, will be teaching my 14-year-old daughter that it is ok to have periods of disconnectedness, and that it is ok to create time for one’s self for reflection and refreshing.

You must do it or what? Sounds like social pressure, not actual work pressure.

what is the relation between people’s choice of tasks that utilize short bursts of attention and their exposure to television shows like sesame street (which focused in learning utilizing just such a strategy?

I’ve thought about this for quite some time. It seems to me that a possible explanation for the results of Clifford Nass’s study is that people who chronically multitask are training themselves to “spread” their attention over many tasks. In other words, they are training themselves to not pay attention to any one thing.

How can you expect to be good at focusing and switching that focus when you can’t even focus on one thing?

That’s like trying to juggle when you can’t even catch one ball at a time.

On the other hand. People who don’t chronically multitask train themselves by focusing on one thing at a time. This naturally makes them better at multitasking because they are good at focusing. I.e. they learn how to catch before they try to juggle.

I agree with Peter. I have been a “sole practitioner” architect for 17 years and a project architect/manager for 22 years. My profession is all about multi-tasking – the whole design process is an insane juggling act. I worry that, because building projects have become so complex, that we will be less and less able to manage them properly and am concerned about the consequences. The complexity of these projects, combined with the ridiculously short production schedules that are established, cause architects, and all those involved, to burn out early.

Has this study looked at aviators? They have to multitask, talk to ATC while flying, repeat approach instructions etc.

This I was almost hit three times by people speaking on their cell phones while driving. Tow of the three were under 30. They were completely oblivious to what they had done.

One girl was so unaware of the fact that she was driving almost prompted me to phone the police. Of course I was driving at the time, so phoning was not an option.

Listening to your guests, I think that there is confusion in the definition of multi-tasking. When I hear someone saying that they have to monitor CNN, check the wires etcetera that is not multi-tasking. It is the task – to monitor half a dozen news feeds and determine what goes into your own news-cast.

Multi-tasking is if you are trying to do distinct and different tasks. So is the Radio guy trying to write a term paper at the same time as he is monitoring the news for his radio station, or emailing a friend, twittering or similar? It doesn’t sound like it.
Let’s differentiate what we mean.
Many jobs have multiple inputs to produce a single output.

I am a 58 year old Art Professor and am back in school for a degree in New Media. It’s a quick study how my students and co-students are learning in sound bites and that they are actually filtering the already filtered information. One wonders how much you are learning in this environment. My colleagues and I have discussed this often. Every year the attention and absorption level of our students goes down. I think that motor skills may be increasing, but the ability to ponder is fairly low, especially the visual ability to really look, which takes time. Ah, there’s the rub!

I am a professional organist and find that when I try to explain to amazed listeners/observers how I “keep up” with three or four manuals (keyboards), pedals, and the music, I joke that “my lobotomy” has helped greatly. What really is happening, I think, is that I have mastered many of the actions to the extent that they have become “automatic”, much like the practiced actions of drivers who scan, steer, brake, shift, etc., with little or no conscious thought. However, I have discovered that I can even carry on a conversation while playing a familiar piece. What’s interesting is that I find that some of my speech follows the rhythm of the music. I can sing along with hymns while playing, but I find that I’m reading ahead in the music, memorizing that short passage and then reading and singing the words. I’m not sure if this is really multi-tasking or multi-tending, or just “serial-tasking”.

I see that too, Putney Swope. Just recently saw a man holding the cell phone in one free hand up to his ear and holding a piece of legal sized paper up to his nose with his other free hand, reading, all while driving his vehicle at 40 miles an hour through a work zone. Yah multi-taskers are sharp ones, sure.

This seemed to be completely overlooked during the discussion on air — The fantastic thing about multitasking (specifically with the media or information) is that are inundated with such a large amount of information that it allows us to be exposed to a wide range of news, ideas, etc. It is not necessary that we remember the specifics of all of these things because if we ever need more information about a certain item we can easily find it again online.

Yes, a facebook conversation does not have the subtle of the real thing, but it does allow us to go far back into the past to review what was said and by who. Someone might be talking on the phone while driving and also hear a tiny blurb about a story that interests them, and then just download the podcast later.

I think the newspaper editor in the program is confusing “multitasking” with having lots of things going on at the same time. As an editor, you need to focus on one thing at at time, and get it right the first time, then move on to the next most important thing that needs attention. This is not multitasking. Multitasking is focusing on two or more things at the same time. For example, driving a car while keypunching a number on a cellphone. That’s much different from being busy, moving from one unfinished task to another, and getting them all done in the nick of time.

It seems to me that secretaries and receptionists (usually women) have as long as I’ve lived suffered the professional risks associated with scattered attention. They are always on call, with the total personality, to real people, with real responsibilities attached to the responses, however routine or special. They can’t stop and polish their nails to regroup in between phone calls or chats. They have to get back to the stack of duties.
One gets home from work, even if there were not an awful lot of actual calls upon one’s attention, and is so glad to be “off the hook.” The caller saying how glad he was to be away from it all. Interruptions are not just a bother. They do deplete the brains ability to reconnoiter. How many dreams would it take to say calm down, it’s your space, your brain, your time.
Some personalities are great at compartmentalizing and can shift as if nothing happened, but it may be the personalities that are dumbed down into nonresponsiveness that do the multitasking best, whether with multimedia, or the Grand Central Station concourse-type busyness.
It would be great for low-paid secretaries etc. to prove that they sacrifice the zen strengths of their brains. Take that to the health insurers!

Multi-taskers and people with ADD have difficulty differentiating between relevant and irrelevant. ADDers have a huge tendency to multi-task. “Multi-tasking” is a euphemism for our great difficulty in focusing on and completing tasks. We have scattershot brains that have difficulty deciding on which of the multitude of information and requests we have been bombarded with, combined with our own personal “to-do” list, is the most important to focus on. We’re easily frustrated, thus easily shift to another of the hundreds of tasks that demand to be done. Like a wide angle lens, we take in everything, unable to filter out the less relevant. It takes longer to get things done. At work, it is easier to focus, because external pressure forces it.

I think that many of your multi-taskers are really also ADHD’ers.

The keyword of the day was “filter,” as echoed here.
My chief gripe about my pre-college education was that it did not teach me at all how to filter. How to focus, sure. How to digest, sure. How to ignore volumes of stuff and sort either according to my own sense of significance or my teacher’s sense, that never came up.
Cheryl, who went back to school at 58 for a degree in New Media mentions this: students are filtering prefiltered info. And the organist says multitasking is old hat; there have always been skills with multi in it. But it isn’t taking in whole people, whole personalities. I’m thinking of I think it was Malcolm Gladwell who wrote about how it takes 7 years to get really good, which is what made the Beatles so great by the time they burst on the scene here. The years in the German nightclubs paid off. My own skill — I use four computer screens, two regular keyboards, and a steno keyboards. I am using a mouse constantly, and dealing with a foot pedal. My brain loves to coordinate all these things, but to get each itty-bitty part automatic takes the same sort of training that learning to walk once did.
The same 7 years is not likely to get a multimedia multitasker to be the equivalent of a master organist. It’s more like they’ll find they’ve been sort of drugged out in la-la land, the mind sort of permanently dizzy. A decade might be the outside limit to allow proper recovery. You want to get to executive level where someone else multitasks for you.

ADHD disguised as multi-tasking is a very valid point. I am a mental health professional and have heard that Acquired ADHD is being considered as a new diagnosis in the next DSM manual (the Mental Health field’s book of all disorders) I have also worked as a substitute teacher with children and teens in my field and have been distressed to see so many who are so distractable. I am sure that their environmental expousure to umpteen techno gadgets from an early age is at least a contributing factor.

Neurologically it is arguable multi-tasking is a modern myth. As other comments here indicate, it is more likely simply shifting focus rapidly from one task to another and doing none well or with much personal satisfaction. Note next time how often the image shifts on TV commercials and your favorite shows and compare to old (pre 70’s )visual media if you doubt our attention span as a society is not dramatically shifting.

First, the comments on craft and physical tasks were interesting – I’m a pianist, and as a musician, one must over-learn the physical act of playing in order to free up some attention for making it musical. It’s the 10,000-hours-of-practice concept.
Second, it was interesting that guest Vivian Ho interpreted Zen practice as being only about “peaceful.” Actually, Zen or other ‘mindfulness in the moment’ practice requires intensive use of attention, so that it is free to move quickly between life’s multiple inputs while still bringing one’s depth of experience to bear. This comes only after much intensive practice(probably 10,000 hours at least!) Perhaps the important questions are, How much attention do I have? And, Is the kind of multi-tasking I’m doing strengthening my attention “muscles” or not?

I found it much easier to “multitask” when I was younger than I do now… I will agree that on one level even if ostensibly we are multitasking, we are really giving priority to one task at a time. In an example of someone listening to music, texting and listening to a person talking in the room, one activity will take priority over the other two. If it is NOT listening to the person in the room, some of what is communicated by that person will be lost or misconstrued, as the verbal part of communication is only one facet (as are body language and subtle intonation).

I have worked in the mental health field for many years, and in the last fifteen years there has been a sharp increase in people presenting symptoms that on the surface appear to be signs of ADD. In reality, the true disorder that we call ADD is rare (in children and even more rare in adults). Often what is happening is a byproduct of stress (environmental over-stimulation being one kind) or low levels of depression; I believe that, at least in part, the former is a result of multitasking. The one young caller who works for a “boutique” food store remarked that when he gets home from work he often spends a couple of hours in debrief mode worrying if he’s gotten everything accomplished he needed to at work. This sort of activity also sets the stage for stress and a feeling of a lack of accomplishment. Completion is a major element of performing a task well.

Ellen Dibble touched on a point I think is part of how we can better look at multitasking when she mentioned being able to multitask mindless activities and conserve ‘…concentration time for special periods.’ It is also becoming increasingly important for us to structure our leisure activities to include those which can provide fulfillment through engaging in a single activity completely in its beginning, middle and end stages.

I am very much a Zen kind of person (sometimes to a fault). I practice mindfulness and being in the moment as much as is possible, even in mundane tasks. Meditation is also so very important a practice in today’s over-stimulating world. My leisure activities of writing (songs, short stories and poems), playing music and gardening all require mindfulness to do well, so my concentration is rewarded and improved. My work activities of mental health counselor, teaching music and running a small landscape business also require mindfulness to really be successful. I would hate to be in a world cluttered with incessant texts, e-mails, phone calls, and various and sundry auditory/visual external environmental stimuli over which I had little power to exercise some modicum of control. Perhaps those who have little control over when their tasks “shift” suffer the most stress.

John S.Allen: music may involve many micro “tasks,” as you consider them, but those “tasks” are working in concert with each other (Joe Wetherbee touches on this, which I will call muscle memory or training gross and fine motor function to react automatically); this is also true in driving a car, or sports, etc. Your team sports example is an interesting one because it involves adrenalin and the release of endorphins; games also have a component wherein the rhythms can be readily predicted. In the three aforementioned activities, when an individual becomes overloaded with stimuli/is asked to perform more tasks than he or she is capable of, there can be a break down of performance. Musical mistakes, Car crashes and sports team losses do readily occur.

Cheryl raises an interesting point about modern learning/processing information.

Being a multi tasker I find this fanscinating because I always thought I was more efficient and and better information digester than most. I really hope this study is debunked. Hahaha. Here is a look that shows how your business should adjust to these findings
http://digg.com/d315sy5?t

[...] more here: Multitasking Minds | WBUR and NPR – On Point with Tom Ashbrook Retweet this postLink to this [...]

I only heard the last 10 minutes of your show today (on multi-tasking), but I was very upset to hear two of your guests defend multi-tasking as a necessary part of life today. It is not. In fact, not only does the vast majority of research show that a person would get more done, more quickly, and with higher quality, if she or he focused on one task at a time. But the idea that we MUST twitter, e-mail, write on friends’ Facebook Walls, text, and talk-all while doing something that is actually important (i.e., talking to a family member or friend, doing our work, studying, etc.)is hogwash. These devices are supposed to make life better, and they have the potential to do that. But not when we fail to recognize when and where we should decide to use them, rather than the devices ruling us. Tonight’s news shows covered the deadly effects of using cell phones, etc. while driving. We need to rein in our addiction to all this and decide our own priorities.

omg omg omg

What an important topic! To multitask or not to multitask. Once we find an answer to this question, wars will be over and peace forever.

When are we going to see WBUR to pick up the topics that they are chartered to do with members’ hard earned contributions.

This is just not right. OnPoint should step up to the plate and invite Architect Richard Gage when he is going to Boston/Cambridge/New Hempshire in October.

If we don’t listen to what he has to say, we cannot get out of Afghanistan. Help Obama to make tough decisions, or else….WE ARE BROKE!

I’m listening to your show and one of your young guests has just asked isn’t it possible that humans “evolve” to be able to multitask? The human race, like any other species, can’t possibly evolve as fast as the world is changing and, in this case, expecting us to be able to multitask. It takes many many many generations for species to evolve. Otherwise, to cite just one example, animals in the past century could have evolved to avoid being hit by cars.

The proponents of multitasking are apt to overlook the pleasure and the value of focusing on one thing deeply, at least once in a while. Our experience in the world is likely to be richer and deeper if, on some sort of regular basis, we can shut out the noise and attend very intently to one thing. Multitasking is the foe of sustained attention spans. The more things you attempt to focus on, the lower the quality of the attention you pay to each one. The trouble is that we get accustomed to shorter and shorter attention spans and lower and lower qualities of attention paid to everything.

I feel multi-tasking is a product of the corporate structure requiring its minions to do more with less.

This is not new. There have been lots of studies, I believe, that refer to this. It has also led to the Adderall problem on college campuses. It’s a huge issue, students taking drugs to focus on their work. You could also argue that this goes all the way back to USA Today and the beginning of soundbites, short snippets of information, headlines only. A multitude of cultural changes from twitter to windows to ipods to IM have encouraged us to leap from one thing to another or try to handle many at the same time. We should try and save our kids. Then again, we don’t have time to focus on them because we’re too busy answering email, commenting on blogs and re-tweeting the article we’re reading.

The thing that never was mentioned on this program tonight was the degradation of newspapers, news broadcasts, corporate services, medical practice, and jobs on the desks of corporate America. Who are the present newscasters that have the popular respect of Walter Cronkite? I no longer will buy a Motorola product because their service telephone lines answered by someone in India, told me: “take it back, get your money back, and buy something that works!” My own take on this is since the late 1980’s there has been such a focus on profit, that we have lost integrity, and multi-tasking is a result of all the people reductions that have been going on since then, and when people are layed off, the ones that are left have to pick up the slack, multi-task, triage, and ultimately people end up buying a CAMRAY car because they get a better product. Japan understands you can’t make a good car if you are at war with your workers. When workers are doing too much their quality goes down, and in the end business pays dearly, or goes bankrupt. I have not bought a newspaper or an American car in years. The impact of this is part of our economic mess. You never got to this level of correlation tonight. I’m sorry about that.

“They miss subtlety, esp. the human dimension of what people may or may not be trying to communicate.”

“Some ideas are deep, nuanced and complex enough so just getting the “gist” isn’t enough or may lead to a wrong conclusion.”

Exactly, Karin and Richard! As a defense, I find myself habitually dumbing down much of what I say or even write, in the realization that most people listen or read with half-attention, “skimming” to get the “gist”. I self-censor: no double negatives! no homonyms! no metaphors! Etc.

I don’t know how today’s young multi-taskers could possibly read and understand literature. Maybe they don’t. That would certainly explain the mundane “See Spot run” prose that predominates in the pages of the Boston Globe. In the recent past, before all the senior writers were bought out or let go, reading the Globe was an altogether different and much richer experience.

Maybe the relevance will finally be apparent from this discussion. Economic growth multiplies the complexity, scale and speed of change of the decision making tasks everyone needs to complete… It creates forced accelerating multi-tasking you could say. I pointed out 30 years ago the inherent unmanageability of that. It may be becoming too late to do anything about the consequences for a world making very large errors as a consequence, for having let it go so very far.

What we need are economies that can be part of nature!
http://www.synapse9.com/drafts/NaturalEcons.pdf

While the topic seemed to center primarily around personal efficiency and whether or not the brain can adapt and get better at multi-tasking, I believe there is something much more important afoot here, which is that the quality of our human interactions are suffering from our cultural addiction to technology. The collective belief that “more is better” has spawned what I refer to as a “Cultural Trance.”. Could the increase in the diagnosis of autism in chilren be related to parents and caregivers being otherwise engaged with their Blackberries? I turned in my cell phone when I became aware that, if I was driving or walking or shopping, not only was I not fully present to the tasks I was concerned with, but more importantly, I felt I was not present to my experience of myself and the world around me. Life is short — choose your distractions wisely!

Felipe give it rest will yah.

Dear Honorable Putney Sir,

Don’t know what you stand for…. but go out that day when Richard Gage is on…. enjoy the bees and the trees. You don’t have to listen to OnPoint, everyday.

Do you have anything to hide about the events of 9/11?

Please be more tolerant and learn how to get along with other people who love this country and may have different opinions (based on science) that are other than yours.

Ok, Buddy?

Felipe: Your comment is off topic, read the commenting rules at the top of this thread. If you don’t have anything to say about the topic at hand, sit on your hands.

If you continue the comment like this my guess is that onPoint staff will start deleting your comments and will eventually block you.

“Felipe: Your comment is off topic…” Posted by Richard

Felipe may be off topic, but he IS on point!

Thank you. Finally scientific proof of what I’ve been observing for years. Multitaskers suck at everything they do.

In my work I have to constantly correct the most basic, stupid mistakes that people make. Often it’s not because these are stupid people, but simply because they’re not paying attention to what they’re doing. They often praise me for having an eye for catching things and being detail oriented, but it’s simply because I actually try to focus on what I’m doing.

I know that I’m not good at multitasking even when it comes to leisure. If I’m trying to watch a game while doing something on my laptop I catch myself barely remembering what happened in it and I get maybe 10% of enjoyment out of it as opposed to watching it without distractions. My whole perception of the game is different. Often I wonder if people writing comments about some particular game watched the same thing I did because their perception of reality is so skewed. I would venture to guess that it’s mostly due to the fact that they were doing other things at the same time.

Talking to anyone addicted to multitasking is impossible and extremely annoying. They’re not even aware that they’re obviously not paying any attention to what the person in front of them is saying. They pay far more attention to their stupid Blackberry than a real live person.

Finally, the young girl on the show exhibits the typical annoying attitude of many people today. Instead of listening to and accepting scientific proof she’s simply getting emotional about it and taking it as an offense.

There’s no logic at all to her arguments. You can’t will yourself to be good at doing three things at the same time anymore than you can will your computer to run 10 applications at the same time as well as it runs one. That’s actually a very good analogy. Our brain, just like a computer processor, has a certain capacity. When that capacity is close to being exceeded it runs like crap and doesn’t do anything well.

A few more things to add.

A great number of job ads now have the ability to multitask as one of the explicitly stated requirements. This plague of being expected to do five things at the same time is becoming impossible to avoid.

A few people mentioned that they listen to NPR while working. I don’t understand how you can do this at all. While I always listen to music while working I absolutely can’t concentrate when listening to talk radio. Music is just a nice background noise that actually helps me concentrate as it blocks out the surrounding environment. Listening to someone talk requires real attention so unless you’re doing a very mundane task which requires zero thinking you simply can’t work and listen to talk radio at the same time. Either you’re not really listening or you’re not really working.

Working 70 hours a week while feeling that you still have to constantly multitask to have time to do something as basic as sleeping is no way to live. This kind of absolutely insane lifestyle (that we all now feel the pressure to live) is what results in unhappiness and depression. That’s why most of America is on psych drugs. It’s just a stupid way to live. There’s only so much you can cram in a day. Where’s the limit?

Lastly, it’s amazing to me how different Europeans are from Americans. I find them to be far more thoughtful and knowledgeable with great perspective on many subjects. They often display real depth in knowledge and thought. Perhaps it’s because their lifestyle allows them to take time to process things instead of superficially skipping around like most Americans.

would love for them to do a study on people who always muti-task and people who don’t in high stress time restraint situations and see which ones prevails.

While these students say they have “no choice” i cannot help but remember the statistic that the average facebook user spends four hours a day (yes, that’s correct, FOUR hours a DAY) on the site. I imagine their choices are there, but they’re not making good ones.

And another thing… ha ha. Regarding mothers and multitasking – i think it is an inevitable and unfortunate aspect of mom reality. But perhaps this is the reason we see so much statistical information now about how unhappy women are? Perhaps the focus on and completion of a job well done is central to feelings of self regard and happiness? In my work, i certainly see evidence of that with small children.

It might be interesting to look at ‘how much’ multi-tasking is possible. For instance there is no doubt that Moms have to multi-task, or that playing an instrument expecially piano or organ involves multi-tasking. On the other hand I guess that every person has a limit to how much and how long they can do it.

So for instance, there are certain repetitive tasks during which I end up working and concentrating better while listening to a podcast of this show, On Point. For instance cleaning up the kitchen or ironing. For such tasks if I choose to watch a movie and do such a task I know I will work slower, but if I am listening to On Point I am pretty confident I am working faster then when I have no distraction to keep me moving. On the other hand there are certain tasks that require 100% of my concentration and at which I could not possibly do anything else except the task at hand.

So one question is perhaps at what point is there overload? I dare to suggest that as you get older people are more able to realize what is too much. This isn’t to say that perhaps younger people can concentrate on more things at once– just that they are trying to do more than they can.

As always– great show and a clean kitchen, Thanks!

Clearly something to be said for being in the moment, yet I couldn’t disagree more that no level of multitasking is doable nor that it is sometimes critically needed.

Before I was diagnosed with ADHD, multi-tasking was truly like an addiction. There were all these podcasts I “had” to listen to. I would chug on with eight tabs open on firefox, a word processor open with my work, perhaps a chat or two on facebook and Tom Ashbrook or Kai Ryssdal on my iPod. For an idea of why people do it, skip on over to the excellent “Talk of the Nation” interview with Dr. Nora Volkow. Volkow studied those with ADHD and found that it is harder for them to concentrate on routine tasks because their brains had a higher threshold before the reward circuits become activated. Now, not everyone has ADHD, but I believe when we run around ’snacking’ on different media and web sources at the same time, what we are doing is chasing that hit of dopamine again and again. The reward is in our brain chemistry rather than in our increase in productivity.

Being on methylphenidate (Ritalin) helps me focus on just one thing. The effects last only a few hours. What has also been useful is changing my pattern of computer use and setting aside more evenings where I won’t switch on the computer at all and crack open a book instead. Incidentally, thank you Tom for all the great authors you’ve had on recently.

In Chinese the term for being distracted literally means “dividing the heart” — I now try to keep my heart undivided as much as possible.

(I still multitask some…I walked the dogs and cooked lunch listening to this podcast. Those are tasks that don’t really use the same part of the brain, or so I tell myself. Of course, I overcooked the noodles. But that’s a cost I can live with.)

Don’t believe the one demensional academics. Studies can prove what they looking to prove.

Pharma is a perfect example of that.

On the issue of using cellphones while driving: I understand that recent cognitive studies have shown that hands-free cellphone use is a significant distraction while driving.

While I am perfectly happy not to talk on the cellphone while driving (if need be), I’m wondering in what way this is different from talking to a fellow passenger in your car while driving. Unenforcability notwithstanding, I doubt anyone would seriously try to convince drivers to stop chatting with passengers. Busdrivers, maybe, but not the rest of us.

If hands-free cellphone use is no different (and I welcome information to the contrary), then it’s a bit silly to go on about its dangers while ignoring all the non-telephonic chitchat that goes on in cars.

What was the actual size of the effect on the multitaskers? I listened to this entire show and nobody mentioned this or bothered to ask about it. All these comments and discussion and yet we have no idea if they were 1% worse or 50% worse or whatever! This, along with guests who didn’t seem to fall into the operational definition of multitasking made this show seem rather ridiculous. I am far more worried about the inability of people (including the host) to interpret scientific studies like this one than about the negative effects of multitasking.

I spent 45 minutes daemon-dialing your number and got only busy-signals. I begin to wonder if any common person can get through to you on a telephone.

My partner is a born multitasker. I have watched her participate in three conversations with six people in three different languages simultaneously. She speaks seven languages fluently, is a Registered Nurse, a Hospice Nurse, a public speaker and educator, an American Herbalists Guild certified Herbalist, and The Medicine-Woman for The Teehahnahmah Indian Nation.

[...] Then Talk of the Nation did a show on it. Then a nationally syndicated show produced by WBUR, On Point. Counting them up, that’s only three times the story was featured, but it seemed like more, [...]