SLIGHTLY
OFF THE MARK
At
work the other day, while taking a 911 call, calling a police unit on the
radio, checking an address on a map, and following an approaching storm system
on a TV screen, I remembered an article I read recently:
That
multitaskers pay a mental price.
Which
explains a lot.
So
when I got off work I did some web searching about multitasking, which is easy
to do on my new iPhone while cooking breakfast, talking to friends on the same
phone, and watching the morning news.
The
Stanford study focuses specifically on media multitaskers, but it turns out
their results apply to pretty much everyone. We’ve all familiar with media
multitaskers, of course. You’ve probably seen videos of people just walking
while texting, resulting in the imprints of their foreheads on glass doors, or
a fall into a fountain. You might have been about to call in a drunk driver
when you suddenly realized the driver was texting, or possibly updating his
Twitter to complain about the idiot driver swerving in front of him – who’s busy posting to his Facebook
about the moron tailgating him.
It
doesn’t have to be high tech, though. One time I was following a lady who was
swerving all over the road. When she pulled into a turn lane I got beside her
and saw she was eating a Dairy Queen Blizzard.
It looked delicious, by the way.
I
drove on, and about ten minutes later I heard an area fire department get paged
out to a car accident – in the same direction the lady turned. When I checked
later, sure enough, it was her. (She wasn’t badly hurt, but probably ended up
with a Blizzard pattern on her shirt.)
Maybe
she should have had her dessert in the parking lot?
People
who are texting, e-mailing, instant messaging, and watching TV at the same time
– and yes, I’ve seen it – are distracted by just about everything, according to
the study. In fact, according to another study, their productivity goes down by
about 40%. This is assuming they don’t plow their Chevy into a utility pole,
which reduces productivity by 100%.
Multitaskers
are generally proud of that ability, and think they’re good at it. But it turns
out the brain can’t concentrate on two things at once: Instead, it must switch
back and forth quickly, and the more things it switches to, the less it can
concentrate. Outside distractions get more distracting, making it that much
worse.
Just
thinking about it can be very distracting.
Switching
back and forth may take a few tenths of a second, and if you’re doing two
things that aren’t all that important to productivity – or safety – it’s not
that big of a deal. Do it a lot while also doing important stuff and it can
cause mental blocks and affect performance. This is why we should take laptops
and cell phones away from Congressmen.
It
turns out, according to the research, that multitaskers don’t have a specific
skill to be proud of; on the contrary, they suck at everything. They don’t
remember as well, they’re distracted more easily, and they can’t switch back
and forth as quickly as other people. They can’t keep things separate in their
minds, can’t filter out irrelevant information, and …
What
were we talking about?
Oh,
yeah: I seriously did just describe Congress! This explains everything. All you
have to do is add that they think spending more money will balance a budget,
and you’ve actually described both chambers of Congress, and the White House.
Give them each a Dilly Bar and the entire government will collapse.
On
the other hand, the researchers conclude that doing less will accomplish more,
and that concept hasn’t worked out well for Congress, either.
I
believe it was Henry David Thoreau who advocated simplifying life down to the
five necessities: food, shelter, clothing, fuel, and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s
20-something daughter. I think that last explains why he ended up leaving
Walden Pond in a hurry.
(I
just checked the internet while texting my wife and watching Mythbusters, and it turns out Emerson
really did have daughters. However, I’ve seen photos of Thoreau, and I don’t
think they’d be interested.)
In
any case, Thoreau might not be the best example of simplifying. Why? Because he
was an author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister,
development critic, surveyor, historian, and transcendentalist.
So maybe he was the multitasker of his age. If smart phones had been around at the time, his head would have exploded. Or he’d have walked into Walden Pond.
