Multitasking can negatively affect the brain

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Multitasking attracts with the potential to do a million things in one go, saving time and delivering incredible results. Around the world, people continue to write on their resumes that they are “capable of multitasking,” and they cite this skill as an invariably positive characteristic. But is it really so? We understand what scientists and psychologists say about the habit of doing ten things at the same time and why it negatively affects not only our efficiency, but also our brain health.

First of all, it should be said that what we used to call multitasking is not really multitasking: trying to be like Julius Caesar, we do nothing more than just very quickly switch our attention from one task to another. When you watch a series on Netflix and answer a friend on a telegram at the same time, you are not concentrating on both screens. By focusing on the text, you invariably miss a part of what is happening in the film.

Unfortunately, such a quick and largely chaotic switching, even if we are not aware of it, makes it difficult to block distractions, weakens mental concentration and, as a result, does not help us do things faster (or better), but, on the contrary, critically slows down cognitive processes.

What is our brain tuned to? Definitely not for multitasking

Instead, it's designed to focus on one thing at a time, and the bombardment of information creates a dangerous feedback loop: we feel like we're doing a ton of things when we're actually doing nothing at all (or at least nothing requiring critical thinking).

So, in a sense, multitasking is simply impossible: our attention and consciousness can only focus on one moment, and switching between them comes at a cost.

Myth: multitasking makes us more productive

Take a break for a minute and think about all those things that you are doing right now. The obvious answer is first, you are reading this article.

However, there is a good chance that you are doing something else in parallel. For example, listening to music, answering a friend's message in a messenger, listening to a conversation on the phone that your partner has in the next room, and so on. Perhaps by successfully concentrating on all of these, you feel that you are good enough at your ability to balance between multiple activities and activities.

But you are probably still not as efficient as you think.

While it was generally accepted in the past that multitasking was a good way to increase productivity, recent research has shown that people who tend to do multiple things at the same time have more trouble concentrating than people who focus on one task at a time.

In addition, doing many different things at the same time can seriously impair cognitive ability. Scientists even cite a figure of 40% - how much, in their opinion, multitasking can reduce productivity.

Since people are not focused on more than one task at a time, putting multiple tasks on the to-do list actually slows down cognitive processing. A person cannot organize their thoughts or filter out unnecessary information, as a result, along with efficiency, the quality of your work also decreases.

One study from the University of London found that subjects who multitask while performing intense tasks showed IQ drops similar to those of people who were sleep deprived. Multitasking has also been linked to increased production of cortisol, the stress hormone that makes us feel tired - and that's when we need energy to concentrate!

An experiment by Robert Rogers and Stephen Mansell showed that people act more slowly when they have to switch between tasks than when they continue to work on the same task.

Finally, another study by Joshua Rubinstein, Jeffrey Evans, and David Meyer showed that switching between tasks simply wastes a huge amount of time, and this rate increased significantly each time the tasks became more difficult.

In our brains, multitasking is controlled by a kind of mental executive function that controls and directs other cognitive processes, and also determines how, when, and in what order we should perform certain actions.

According to researchers Meyer, Evans and Rubinstein, the process of executive control consists of two stages: the first stage is known as "goal shift" (the decision to make one instead of the other), and the second is known as "role activation" (transition from the rules of the previous task to the rules performing a new one).

Switching between stages can take as little as a few tenths of a second, which is not that much. However, this time span increases when people begin to switch back and forth between tasks on a regular basis.

In general, this is not so important when, for example, you iron linen and watch TV at the same time. However, if you are in a situation where your safety or productivity is at stake - for example, when you are driving in heavy traffic and talking on the phone - even a small amount of time can be critical.

Alas, studies show that using hands-free in a car does not improve your concentration in any way: you continue to be distracted by conversation in the same way, even though you have the ability to keep both hands on the steering wheel.

Truth: multitasking is bad for your brain

In today's busy world, multitasking has become all too common, but what impact does the constant switching and stimulation of information have on the development of the mind?

Stanford University scientist Clifford Nuss found that people who were considered multitasking gurus actually performed worse at sorting out relevant information from a stream of irrelevant details and were less mentally organized.

However, perhaps the more unpleasant finding was that people who were inclined to multitask showed such negative results even in those cases when they did not perform several tasks at the same time. That is, the potentially negative effects of multitasking on the brain can be permanent.

“Even when we didn't ask these people to multitask, their cognitive processes were disrupted. They are generally worse off not only in the type of thinking required for multitasking, but also in what we usually call deep thinking,”Nass told NPR in 2009.

Experts also suggest that adolescents are most negatively affected by chronic heavy multitasking, as this is when the brain is busy making important neural connections.

Diffusion of attention and constant distraction by multiple streams of information can have serious, long-term, and destructive effects on the adolescent brain. Unlucky for men either: multitasking can lower their IQs by an average of 15 points, essentially making them the average cognitive equivalent of an eight-year-old.

Finally, MRI scans showed that subjects who are prone to media multitasking (that is, consume multiple streams of information simultaneously and constantly switch between news feeds, mail, instant messengers and vice versa), a lower brain density is found in the anterior cingulate cortex - the region associated with empathy and emotional control.

It is not yet fully understood whether multitasking is the cause of this effect, or whether pre-existing brain damage leads to the formation of a habit of doing several things at the same time. The good news is that the evidence already suggests that people who stop multitasking can improve their cognitive performance.

At least, this is the opinion of the already mentioned researcher Nass. In his opinion, to reduce the overall negative impact of multitasking, it is enough to limit the number of things you do at the same time at any given time to two.

Alternatively, you can also recommend the “20 minute rule”. Instead of constantly switching from one task to another, try to devote your full attention to one task for a 20-minute period before moving on to the next task.

All in all, multitasking is definitely not a skill to be proudly added to your resume, but a bad habit to get rid of.