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Habitual Multitaskers Do It Badly
iandoh writes "According to a group of Stanford researchers, people who frequently multitask don't pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time. In other words, multitaskers are bad at multitasking. The research team is also studying how to design computer voices for cars that result in safer driving."
Reader AliasMarlowe adds "The comparison involved multitasking with a number of attention or context related tests. For the study, multitasking was defined as consuming multiple media sources at once — gaming, TV, IM, email, etc. Interestingly, the habitual multitaskers were much worse at multitasking than the single taskers in these relatively straightforward tests. In self-assessment the multitaskers considered themselves good at it and the single taskers considered themselves bad at it. An extreme case of the Dunning-Kruger effect, perhaps, with consequences for business and society."
People with attention-deficit problems are probably the ones who are most likely to attempt to multitask.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
text while driving
Please watch this video and reconsider your habit of texting while driving.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
...because they know from experience that it produces better results. People who habitually multitask do not know how to do a better job, so they think they're good at multitasking. Single-taskers are probably under much more stress though as they aim higher even when multitasking.
I multitask a lot, but I've only been doing it after learning how a computer does it - you know, that same computer INCAPABLE of real multitasking? Yeah, humans should do it like that as well.
The trick is to use a divide and conquer algorithm on your tasks and divide them into chunks of just the right size - too small and you'll have too much overhead switching processes, too little and you'll essentially reach a dead-lock situation where everything is waiting for you to finish that one thing.
What works for me is, for example, reading a chapter of a textbook, followed by a few minutes on slashdot and whatnot, then going back to the book and so forth ad nauseum.
This way you're always multitasking without actually multitasking and you get a lot more done than just focusing on one task for a few hours, then on another for a few more hours and so on.
I'm a little puzzled by the tests.
The last test seemed to test ability to move from one focused task to another focused task, each one consuming 100% of attention.
I would expect a person with practice focusing on a single task to do well there.
The first test involved focusing on one object while ignoring distractions. Many of the people who consider themselves multi-taskers have probably trained themselves to be high-novelty seeking and easily distracted. Not saying this is necessarily good, just not clear how this was testing multi-tasking.
It seems to me a "multi-tasker" would do better at a test that actually tested tracking multiple inputs at once.
Men's jobs demanded social interaction as well, and still do. You can't take down a wooly mammoth with only yourself and a spear. The men hunted, the women gathered. That's why married men are always so exasperated by their wives' "Well LOOK for it!" Male brains just aren't wired that way.
Free Martian Whores!
Damn! You're right. I was reading Slashdot and I forgot to breathe again.
A good example of why windows shouldn't steal focus, but rather irrelevant to the subject at hand...
So what you are saying is that you are only stupid on occasion?
Another video worth watching is the one where a U.S. busdriver is texting, and slams into a stopped car on the interstate.
So I guess that makes a good argument for putting walls across interstates?
Have you noticed how many employers don't simply want, but insist that new hires be good at multitasking? That the successful employee will be not only able to manage several projects at the same time, but will jump from one to another like a coked-up spider monkey on command?
Now, I admit fully to being resolutely anti-corporate, so it's only natural for me to look at this suspiciously. But I have to imagine that a whole lot of other people will see this as a disorder not just of the worker but of management, accepting sight unseen that multitasking, getting bits and pieces done on a whole lot of different projects in short order, is somehow more "efficient" (Hello? Changeover time?) than doing one thing to a good stopping point and then moving to another project when you're damn good and ready. It's especially a management problem if the management insists on mandating the changeovers, forcing employees to change gears without the clutch engaged.
I can easily believe this sort of affliction can be inflicted. So I say let's study the possibility that ADD can be a workplace injury, to be covered by health insurance, and see how long this trend lasts.
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
People that talk on their cell phones while driving, are obviously distracted and drive like they're retarded. Crashing into stationary objects isn't the only hazard these morons face. Pissing off other motorists and getting your dumb ass shot is also a possibility. I for one have felt this impulse on more that one occasion while following some imbecile, talking on their cell phone while trying to stay between the ditches.
Personally, I am all for imposing very large fines for people using cell phones while driving. This is already the case on all military bases. I think it's time to place new laws to include all other roads as well.
In your case, texting while driving: Your eyes are not on the road; Both hands are doing something else instead of piloting your large conglomeration of steel barreling down the road.
I'm having some difficulty putting a suitable punishment for you, my friend. Any first thoughts I'm having are not good for you.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself." Mark Twain
Actually, I think this study suggests that multitaskers try to get around this problem by not formally context-switching, but rather just reacting to everything as it comes in and attracts attention. Ideally this would be like an interrupt-driven system, where rather than trying to monitor and decide when to switch tasks, you simply service interrupts as they come in using a minimal context. The problem is that the people who do this regularly have no way to "disable interrupts"; they're always distracted by other information flows regardless of the importance of the primary task.
I would conjecture that those who feel they are good at multitasking do _not_ feel this -- and that's both why they feel they are good at multitasking, and why they are actually bad at it.
I have a better idea for you. Put the damn shit down. I don't care what kind of "emergency" you are having at work. Your business can wait the 30 minutes for you to get home. If not, you need to rethink your business processes. I don't care who you are or what company you work for, your stupid fucking text message is NOT worth more than anyone's life.
If you or anyone else who is too self-centered and self-important to stay off the fucking phone for a few minutes while you drive ever plow into anyone, you better not hope it's me. I will haunt your fucking dumb ass for the rest of your life. I will torture you and your family until you are all on the brink of madness. Then your family will watch you commit suicide right in front of their eyes by shoving that fucking phone into your eye socket and pulling it out of your throat.
I hate you all, you fucking phone drivers. Get off your fucking phones and out of my damn lane. YOU are the reason that it is such hell to drive now. YOU are the reason there are so many wrecks and red light running. YOU are the reason that so many lives are lost and everyone's insurance is so high. Hang the fuck up.
Yes, I can multitask by reading a book and riding a stationary bike with no appreciable impact in performance of either. I can run and catch a football. I can walk down the hall and carry on a conversation. I can answer emails and listen to music.
All of these examples involve one activity that requires attention and one that does not require attention.
Where humans can't multitask is when two or more activities require attention. A classic example is driving and talking on a cell phone. Most people think that they can do this effectively. They are ALL wrong. They believe this because of two phenomena (1) for the most part, driving is fairly autonomous, only occasionally does it require attention (2) if your attention is on your phone conversation, you tend to miss those times when driving does require your attention unless something interrupts your attention like you have an accident or someone honks a horn at you for driving like a jackass. For the most part, these drivers are blissfully ignorant of their ineptitude behind the wheel.
Most people who think they can multitask with other activities are wrong for the same reasons. I've yet to see someone with an open laptop in a meeting freely contribute to the process and often they force everyone else in the meeting to backtrack when their input is actually required.
I think you have a good point here, the most important part of multitasking isn't how many tasks you do at once, but how well you prioritize, as different tasks start to use up more of your internal resources you have to know which tasks to drop and which to keep. This is a common problem, people who keep the cell phone conversation instead of the focus on driving for example.
I used to work tech support, the majority of calls were dead simple and required very little thought on my part, it was quite common for me to be on 2 different IRC channels, ICQ, monitoring a ham radio, chatting with co-workers (the mute button is wonderful) all while talking to the customer on the phone. The trick was, when one of those rare calls came in that actually required real thought and problem solving I had to immediately stop monitoring any of the other communications and focus solely on the call.
Another example is while driving on a good day I'll have the radio going, I'll be monitoring a couple of ham radios, and possibly talking with a passenger, but if driving through a blizzard on slick roads in a whiteout all the radios are off, and any passenger better shut up.
90% of people are stupid on occasion. The other 10% are stupid all the time.
"...it means we are predators."
no it doesn't.
The human mind is not a computer, stop applying computing methodology to it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A 60mph speed delta is a lot better for everyone involved than 120mph, especially when you consider that kinetic energy is 1/2m(V^2).
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
So I guess that makes a good argument for putting walls across interstates?
Or not letting stupid people drive giant metal buses.
I agree with you but add the proviso - if one thinks an incoming call or text is urgent and vital, safely pull off the road into a parking lot and return it safely. Here in Rochester we had a 17 year old girl kill herself and several of her friends who were passengers in the car by texting while driving - she crossed into the path of a large tanker truck. Death by imprudence...
Please consider never providing contrived works of fiction as "proof" for important issues.
I can't stand this "scared straight" crap. It undermines the real issue by relegating it to the same level as any other movie special effects. It's like the "crack kills" campagins of the late 80s and early 90s. The only problem with extreme, over the top, graphic fakes is you're showing them to kids who watch graphic horror for fun and have, themselves, done exactly what you're telling them will cause Certain Doom, many time - with no ill effects. For drugs, telling people they'll overdose and die on the first hit only works if the target of your BS has never tried it, or doesn't know anyone who's tried it, or doesn't go out themselves the next day and try it - and not die. Now your credibility is zero, and you'll never get their attention again.
Leave marketing to consumer goods. Provide real examples for real issues.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
I agree - he was much too polite. Texting drivers needs to have their fingers chopped off. Since it will happen anyway, sooner or later, only with more collateral damage, it's not a punishment but simply a matter of prevention.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
And this is why many bosses will pull people off of important projects for many trivial tasks over the course of time. They don't properly process the impact of these interrupts. Then, when tasks aren't done on time and the bossman is told they were constantly interrupted by him, the boss doesn't even remember because he let the problem-at-hand effect the outcome without letting any of actually register in his thought process.