Can humans multitask?
Whenever I decided to sit down and do something that requires me to focus for a while, the very next moment I found myself paying my bills. Until now, I genuinely thought I was capable of doing different things at the same time. I could pay my bills, write Python code, talk to my sister on the phone while TV was on. The big fat lie I kept telling myself until now: I was multitasking.
So, what happened and I quit thinking that I can multitask?
Well, it all started with meditating. The more I sit down for 15 minutes a day and focus on breath, and try to ignore anything else, the more I noticed that my so-called “multitasking” was a type of anxiety. For instance, fear of failure somehow came in the form of paying the gas bill. I was constantly trying to distract myself from what I was doing for whatever reason. I wasn’t multitasking, I was swiftly, anxiously switching tasks. After I noticed this, it actually arose my interest, I did my research and here’s what I’ve found out:
1. Men and women are equally bad at multitasking.
Let’s get one thing out of the way before starting: I heard over and over that women are better at multitasking than men. The sad truth is we both are bad at it. In a blog for the Harvard Business Review, researchers said there is no real difference between men and women when it comes to doing several things at once.
The word “multitasking” implies that you can do two or more things at once, however in reality our brains only allow us to do one thing at a time and we have to switch back and forth. So, it’s really not multitasking, once again, it’s task switching, swiftly. Let’s take a look at how it takes its toll on our brains.
2. Multitasking is addictive.
Every time you respond to an email, or send a text message, you get a shot of hormones directly to the pleasure center of the brain that can be incredibly addictive. In fact, in laboratory studies, rats that could press a button to send an impulse directly to their pleasure center were so absorbed with pushing the button that they ignored food and sleep to the point of death.
“When we complete a tiny task, we are hit with a dollop of dopamine, our reward hormone. Our brains love that dopamine, and so we’re encouraged to keep switching between small mini-tasks that give us instant gratification.”
— tech CEO Larry Kim
3. Multitasking could make you dumber.
In 2005, a research by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London found that “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.”
Note that when the study was published we had way too less things to distract ourselves, in the year of 2019, things even got worse. Guess you just need to roll a nice joint, light it up and finish the task in front of you.
4. Multitasking affects your memory, badly.
In 2011, University of California published a research study showing how quickly shifting from one task to another impacts our short term memory. This negative impact becomes gradually apparent as you get older.
Researchers show that multitasking negatively affects short-term, or “working,” memory in both young and older adults. Working memory is the capacity to hold and manipulate information in the mind for a period of time. It is the basis of all mental operations. It is the first step of learning.
Besides, when we read or learn without distraction, new ideas make their way into the hippocampus, which plays a critical role in processing, storing and recalling information. But when our attention is divided, new knowledge ends up in the striatum which is less flexible and more specialized area of the brain that isn’t as easy to access.
The best thing you can do to improve your memory is to pay attention to the things you want to remember. Well, that’s easier said than done.
5. Multitasking creates stress and anxiety.
Science, once again, has shown that multitasking increases our brain’s production of cortisol, which is known as stress hormone. Once we’re stressed, we are more prone to get anxious over little things. And this leads to more release of cortisol. In the end, you have a nice vicious cycle of constant stress and anxiety.
One of the main stressors is your e-mail inbox. Yes, excessive amount of cortisol is produced, when we switch between reading and responding to e-mails.
Overall, trying to “multitask” is increasing our chances of suffering from depression and anxiety. It also causes overwhelm and burnout. Asking the brain to shift attention from one activity to another causes the prefrontal cortex and striatum to eat up glucose, the same fuel they need to stay on task. The kind of continual shifting we do with multitasking causes the brain to burn through fuel so quickly that we feel exhausted and disoriented after even a short time.
6. Multitasking can also be a symptom of anxiety and depression.
Psychologist Dr. Mark Becker, lead investigator on the study at Michigan State University, said he was surprised to find such a clear association between media multitasking and mental health problems.
“The unique association between media multitasking and these measures of psycho-social dysfunction suggests that the growing trend of multitasking with media may represent a unique risk factor for mental health problems related to mood and anxiety,” researchers wrote in the study.
This, also was the pattern that I’ve noticed in my own habits. Like I said above, my “attempts to multitasking” was always some kind of running away and fear of failure. Scrolling through Instagram and not enjoying any of the photos but insist on doing it while trying to finish a project was purely a symptom of my anxiety. After I found out what was going on, this information became useful for me to resist the temptation of checking my phone and actually finish the task that I work on.
7. Multitasking is a waste of time.
When you try to do 2 things at the same time rather than finishing one and doing the other one later, you end up wasting your time. Because when you switch tasks, you forget where you left off. The more you switch, the more you backtrack — the more time you’ve wasted.
In my experience, similar to what researchers estimate, multitasking wastes around 40% of my time that I spend on the tasks. It means, switching between tasks can cause a 40% productivity loss.
It’s like having a 3-day week instead of a 5-day week.
8. Multitasking kills creativity.
Each time we multitask we train our brains to lose focus and get distracted. We slowly lose our ability to stay concentrated and as I explained above, this is very dangerous because it’s addictive.
Neuroscientist, Earl Miller, suggests that multitasking could kill creativity “Innovative thinking, after all, comes from extended concentration…When you try to multitask, you typically don’t get far enough down any road to stumble upon something original because you’re constantly switching and backtracking.”
Creativity is getting wasted by so-called multitasking.
9. Multitasking hurts your decision-making mechanism.
Daniel Levitin, neurascientist, simply put that multitasking could lead to impulsive behaviour and bad decisions, “One of the first things we lose is impulse control. This rapidly spirals into a depleted state in which, after making lots of insignificant decisions, we can end up making truly bad decisions about something important.”
This is again, one thing I experienced myself. After quitting multitasking, I’ve noticed how cautious I’ve become and started responding rather than reacting.
So, how can we stop the urge to multitask?
At this point, I believe we are all fully convinced that it’s neuroscience says that our capacity to multitask is virtually nonexistent.
Multitasking is a computer-derived term. We have one processor. We are humans.
The easiest solution for me was to completely remove the temptation. Try to prevent interruptions by turning off your phone, deleting some apps, turning off the notifications, closing the door, and surround yourself with only one task at hand. Try to finish every task to completion.
But more importantly, meditate. Try mindfulness meditations, watching your breath. Take mindfulness breaks throughout the day and really engage what you’re doing at that moment.
It’s not easy but it’s worth it.
