Multitasking Considered Detrimental

djvaselaar sends along an article from The New Atlantis that summarizes recent research indicating that multitasking may be detrimental to work and learning. It begins, "In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: 'There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.' To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one's time; it was a mark of intelligence... E-mails pouring in, cell phones ringing, televisions blaring, podcasts streaming--all this may become background noise, like the 'din of a foundry or factory' that [William] James observed workers could scarcely avoid at first, but which eventually became just another part of their daily routine. For the younger generation of multitaskers, the great electronic din is an expected part of everyday life. And given what neuroscience and anecdotal evidence have shown us, this state of constant intentional self-distraction could well be of profound detriment to individual and cultural well-being."

Comments

Re:Multitasking is easy!

[techmuse]

That's not multitasking: that's switching between tasks very slowly (unlike your processor which does it very fast). Multitasking is the equivalent of breathing and running (two or more things at the same time) - or having multiple processors in computer terms. Actually, what you are thinking of is multiprocessing, which is different from multitasking. Multitasking is switching back and forth between multiple tasks, each of which run for a fixed quantum before the next task switch occurs. Although this is typically done too fast to notice, the rate of task switching is not part of the definition of multitasking. Multiprocessing is the actual simultaneous execution of two tasks or threads, and is typically performed using distinct execution units, such as multiple processors, cores, or (as in the case of Intel's hyperthreading), subsets of pipelines.

As Said By..

[BlueStrat]

As said by Charles Emerson Winchester III:

"I do one thing, I do it well, and I move on."

What a great show MASH was. Sadly, judging by what's followed from the major networks in the years since, it seems to have been one of the last gasps of truly quality TV series.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Reality check, anyone?

[xaxa]

Give him a break, he's 314!

You raise an interesting point. TFA says "In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: ... ". According to Wikipedia, the 3rd Earl of Chesterfield died in 1726, and the 5th Earl of Chesterfield was born in 1755, so the only "Earl of Chesterfield" that could have written letters in the 1740s was the 4th.

So, how the fsck could he have written to his son if his *first* son, who inherited the title, wasn't born until 15 years after that decade?

The article says his first son -- the one the letters are addressed to -- died, so he never inherited the title. The 4th Earl adopted another son who went on to become the 5th Earl of Chesterfield.

Project Gutenberg has the letters: http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c#a1187

Re:One-size-fits-all doesn't fit all

[Aceticon]

I've worked in reasonably extreme examples of both kinds of environments:

1. Frequent interruptions, open-office noisy environment with lots of movement (Investment Banking, Software Development/Support in the trading floor)
2. Few interruptions, quiet team-sized offices (IT Products, Software Design and Development)

The productivity and work efficiency in the second kind of environment is several times (3 times or more) higher than in the first.

This seems to be true not only for me, but also for my colleagues. Amongst other things, in noisy environments with frequent interruptions people seem to make more mistakes and be more likely to forget important things.

From what I've seen, the most extreme cases of multi-tasking (crack-berry users) are also the people most likely to forget important things while dealing with unimportant ones.