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Multitasking Drains Your Brain's Energy Reserves, Researchers Say (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes an article from Quartz:
When we attempt to multitask, we don't actually do more than one activity at once, but quickly switch between them. And this switching is exhausting. It uses up oxygenated glucose in the brain, running down the same fuel that's needed to focus on a task...
"That switching comes with a biological cost that ends up making us feel tired much more quickly than if we sustain attention on one thing," says Daniel Levitin, professor of behavioral neuroscience at McGill University. "People eat more, they take more caffeine. Often what you really need in that moment isn't caffeine, but just a break. If you aren't taking regular breaks every couple of hours, your brain won't benefit from that extra cup of coffee."
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
"That switching comes with a biological cost that ends up making us feel tired much more quickly than if we sustain attention on one thing," says Daniel Levitin, professor of behavioral neuroscience at McGill University. "People eat more, they take more caffeine. Often what you really need in that moment isn't caffeine, but just a break. If you aren't taking regular breaks every couple of hours, your brain won't benefit from that extra cup of coffee."
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
I find it depends on who's driving the switching. If I'm doing it at my own pace it's much less annoying than when some asshat is wittering or interrupting.
Maybe because I switch as I'm coming out of "the zone" anyway?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I was going to comment but am busy doing a few other things. Ugh, need a nap now.
Notifications from apps ranging from email, slack, Facebook, Twitter.
Just turn them off. You're back in control. My 'out of office' says 'back on Monday phone if important'
Do you need extra brain-memory, try this upgrade guide...
... You don't need those childhood memories anyway.
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I agree. Trying to switch between tasks has a huge overhead and the effort to regain focus is noticeable for me. Given the chance, I much prefer bringing all my concentration to bear on a single albeit complex task to doing simultaneous but simple tasks.
One could argue that if the task does not merit your full attention, perhaps it is not worth doing at the moment? How many workplace errors and even injuries occur because someone wasn't properly focused on what they were doing? No one questions the danger of texting while driving, yet there is a workplace expectation of multitasking in the name of productivity.
Multitasking is awesome for computers, not so much for humans. Work smarter not harder.
What is totally useless is to do several things in parallel. The old story of Napoleon being able to dictate a letter, read a book, have a conversation and lead a battle all at the same time is simply bullshit. Had he done so, he would had sucked at all of them, in parallel.
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
But what they're ACTUALLY saying is that if you do tasks serially, the total useful effort will be closer to 100% than if you try to switch back and forth between them.
Actually taking a break is substantially different from loading up a new context and working at it, then swapping back.
I disagree because you then have to add all the time wasted interacting with the people who come over and ask when you are going to start on their task.
Context switching has a cost - film at 11.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
In that case, you're not actually single tasking, are you?
Play the people off of each other. for example, you have tasks for A,B,C, and D and you're doing them in that order. If B pesters you while you're doing A's task, then D pesters you, tell D that his task is being delayed by B's task but if B were to die mysteriously, D's task would get done a lot sooner.
I have worked primarily as chief engineer or electrician on commercial fishing vessels, mostly in the Bering Sea. Generally it's 12 hour shifts, and the boat is in continuous 24 hour operation. Typically, systems that require simultaneous engineer attention include fishing hydraulics, power generation, processing equipment, propulsion, & refrigeration. When I first come to a new boat, I have these issues when I'm switching between these things. As time goes on, I develop a mental model of the specifics of the entire vessel, and instead of switching between different things, I'm paying attention to one, more complex thing. When that happens I lose this penalty somewhat. The problem comes when returning from vacation, because I want to enjoy the loss of penalty, but the model may no longer be complete or may be intermixed with models of other vessels.
>"Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?"
Yes. I find over multitasking exhausting in every way... mentally and physically. Often it can't be avoided, but usually it is due to artificial deadlines and unrealistic expectations by others. It makes a job so less rewarding- it seems like nothing really ever gets done and you can't be proud of the results. Sometimes it is better to just block things and get some stuff done from start to finish and move to the next task. And there is an inherent reward for having finished something and done it right than juggling 6 things for 10+ times as long.
Because in your definition if i am taking a shit and reading a magazine at the same time, i am switching between them?
No, you're not.
I used to have epilepsy, and one thing it taught me was what automatisms are and how many I had. Have you ever had to stop at the store on the way home from work, but you spaced out and drove home before you realized it? That's because you were using an automatism to drive, while your thalamus had your attention focused on something else, like crap on the radio.
Basically a seizure (the kind I had) was a blue screen crash; I would convulse on the floor for a few minutes, and then my brain would have to reboot entirely from scratch. (That was a process that was 90% complete within an hour, but didn't really finish for several days- sort of like how Windows boots up "right away" but then ignores you for a couple minutes.) It wasn't like waking up- this was a very smooth process with no well-defined boundaries, from complete unconsciousness, to a dim and foggy awareness, then to a period of general ditziness and impaired memory, and finally to fully awake and normal. (Afterwards I would write shitty code for a couple days until recovery was complete.) But during the early stages my initial behavior was being completely driven by automatisms.
The first thing I would do after a seizure (or this is what people told me) would be to crawl around, or stand up, start swatting at anything that came near me, etc. Stuff an amphibian could do. Then I would start running around in random directions, descending stairwells without falling, etc. As the minutes went by the behavior would get more complicated. My wife told me stories about how I unzipped my pants and pissed against the wall like it was a urinal. Once I picked up her toothbrush, made a clumsy effort to brush my teeth with it, then dropped it, kneeled down on the floor to look for it, but didn't recognize it. So I picked up the bathroom scale, as if that was what I was looking for. I looked at the scale in my hands, couldn't figure out what to do with it, and set it down on a table before continuing to run around the house constantly looking for "something". She once found me outside completely naked, trying to read the electric meter. People at work said I'd get off the floor, sit at their desks while unconscious, and start typing crap into their keyboards. I once tried to make coffee at 3 AM but couldn't figure out what to put in the filter. When I was 20 I even drove a car for a couple miles through a busy neighborhood while unconscious. I didn't get in an accident, but I did miss a turn. I didn't realize what was going on until I was getting puzzled by an unfamiliar intersection while waiting at a red light.
Once something feels "second nature", your brain has developed an automatism for doing it, which requires less interaction with the thalamus, freeing you to focus your attention on something else. But doing two unpracticed tasks at once requires constant process switching.
"My wife says men are unable to do two things at the same time, but that's not true. Whatever I'm doing, I have to be listening to her at the same time."