Multitasking May Be Truly Harmful
Go figure: focusing on a dozen things poorly, running from fragmented job to fragmented job, trying to shift mindsets from tactical to strategic and struggling to figure out where you left a certain task might have long-term negative effects.
After jumping through the mental hoops, the researchers found that the heavy multimedia users were at a disadvantage. Compared with those who rarely used more than one type of media at a time, heavy multitaskers had slower response times, most often because they were more easily distracted by irrelevant information, and because they retained that useless information in their short-term memory.
While the delay was only about half a second in some tests, this could be enough to cause problems in everyday life, says Goodman, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
“You’re being flooded with too much information and you can’t selectively filter out quickly which is important and which is not important,” says Goodman.
So, to summarize the article:
- Heavy-multitaskers did worse on attention tests than non-multitaskers.
- Multitaskers are more easily distracted and susceptible to irrelevant information.
- Multitaskers often retain useless information in short-term memory.
- Negative effects from sustained multimedia multitasking may not be reversible.
- The good news: multitasking cannot cause ADHD, which is rooted in genetic susceptibility.
I can tell you this from a personal perspective: since becoming involved in job and hobbies that encourage and demand multitasking, I have a hard time with many of the things mentioned in the article. All the more reason mindfulness and relaxation will become necessary countermeasure skills as technology – and the pace of productivity – advances.
(Via)
