The Myth of Multitasking
Peter Prevos |
362 words | 2 minutes
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A favourite buzzword heard around water coolers in offices spanning the globe is multitasking. Employers see the presumed ability to do more than one thing simultaneously as the hallmark of a great employee. This short article looks at the myth of multitasking.
People imagine themselves as multi-armed Hindu goddesses or gods of efficiency, aiming to manage their time better by doing many things simultaneously.
Unfortunately, multitasking is self-deception. In the words of psychiatrist Edward Hallowell,1 multitasking is a mythical activity in that people believe they can do two or more tasks simultaneously, just as effectively as one.
The Myth of Multitasking
Neuroscientific research supports this practical knowledge. A neural network in the frontal lobe acts as a bottleneck of information processing that severely limits our ability to multitask. Not only do tasks take longer, but the quality is also reduced.
Multitasking introduces a switching cost which means that the brain has to adapt to the new task every time it switches. The switching time can be low, but can amount to as much as 40% of your productive time.
The switching cost depends on the cognitive load f the task. We are very adept at having a dep discussion while doing menial tasks like doing the dishes. But, watching a movie while also scrolling your phone will not do either task justice.
Multitasking in a Magic Show
What managers can learn from magicians and cognitive scientists is that we should focus on only one task at a time. Magicians are very adept at controlling our attention by running a dual narrative.
In this video, the late Dutch magic genius Tommy Wonder shows how people are easily deceived because their minds can only focus on one thing at a time.
- Hallowell, “CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked, and About to Snap!” (Ballantine, 2006).
Unfortunately, the feeble human mind cannot focus on more than one thing simultaneously. The myth of multitasking is no better illustrated than a magician’s ability to deceive people, wonderfully demonstrated by Tommy Wonder in the video below. Magicians use techniques based on our limitations in attending to multiple things simultaneously to create the illusion of magic.
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