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Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

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Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#11
My primary school age son, and anecdotally, lots of other kids of similar age, relentlessly multitask in ways that hurts my brain just to think about.

He literally is playing a game, watching a YouTube video in another screen, and talking to friends at the same time, and in the most extreme case, is even listening to an audiobook or podcast as well.

Asking kids about it, they all say that's just what they do and look at us oldies like we are from the 20th century or something.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#12

Again and again, people just refuse to accept that cognitive performance has very clear limits, and that multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours are, at best, a total waste of time. And exponentially so, the more “focus-intensive” the work is. Why do we have this bias? Is it deeply wired in some sort of survival instinct?

From what I've seen, multitasking tends to inversely correlate with how secure a person feels in their life. Multitasking seems to be driven (for me and those I've spoken to) by a sense that one needs to "catch up" or "get ahead". Dig a bit deeper and implicit beneath that is the feeling, "things aren't OK just as they are".

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#13

Again and again, people just refuse to accept that cognitive performance has very clear limits, and that multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours are, at best, a total waste of time. And exponentially so, the more “focus-intensive” the work is. Why do we have this bias? Is it deeply wired in some sort of survival instinct?

Probably because work culture was originally not knowledge/cognitive based, and the expectations were based on human endurance of physical expenditure, which has different load bearing characteristics.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#14

My primary school age son, and anecdotally, lots of other kids of similar age, relentlessly multitask in ways that hurts my brain just to think about. He literally is playing a game, watching a YouTube video in another screen, and talking to friends at the same time, and in the most extreme case, is even listening to an audiobook or podcast as well. Asking kids about it, they all say that's just what they do and look…

I wonder if brain structures of children are getting wired differently to better accommodate for multitasking in the modern Information Age. I would imagine that if you multitask all day, your brain would adapt to do this context switching more effortlessly, probably at the cost of something else that the brain judges as less important. Not saying that that's a bad thing, I'm just curious.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#16

Again and again, people just refuse to accept that cognitive performance has very clear limits, and that multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours are, at best, a total waste of time. And exponentially so, the more “focus-intensive” the work is. Why do we have this bias? Is it deeply wired in some sort of survival instinct?

I think what you say is true over the long term, but not so much over the short term. Need me to skip breaks and work hours for one day when I'm well rested. I definitely can be significantly more productive than usual. Problem is that it's not sustainable.

That's the trap. I can pull off 16-hour days once in a while. They problem is that once I knew I can do that I tended to factor them into my planning, instead of treating them as the absolute exception that is actually harmful to my health.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#17

Again and again, people just refuse to accept that cognitive performance has very clear limits, and that multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours are, at best, a total waste of time. And exponentially so, the more “focus-intensive” the work is. Why do we have this bias? Is it deeply wired in some sort of survival instinct?

We love to hustle

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#18
> A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they'd expect if they had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night.

Does anyone know which study this is?

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#19

My primary school age son, and anecdotally, lots of other kids of similar age, relentlessly multitask in ways that hurts my brain just to think about. He literally is playing a game, watching a YouTube video in another screen, and talking to friends at the same time, and in the most extreme case, is even listening to an audiobook or podcast as well. Asking kids about it, they all say that's just what they do and look…

Sure, but these are all just fun things, none of which really require any focus. My kid does this too, but when it is time to do homework even having music on has an immediately obvious negative effect.

Re: Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

#20

I'd vote to have no notifications (of any kind) from chat & messaging tools as the default. This too especially at work to reduce overload of multi-tasking. Even showing the number of messages on an icon in the taskbar is very distracting.

I got on this train when I got my first iPhone. I turned off every notification except the ringer (no one calls me except free cruise spam, so maybe I should silence that).

At work, I disable all Slack messages and check Slack in my slack time. Email gets checked at 9AM and 4:30P.

It’s glorious.

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