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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)

#201

Post by LeftHandPath »

hnick wrote: post #185
andrewstuart wrote: post #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…

I am late 30s and do that. I think it is a learned dysfunction / habit / stimulatory addiction. Just last night my wife asked how I can play a game (Path of Exile) and watch YouTube on my other screen. It was a little hard to explain but I mentioned I tend to watch videos I don't really need to look at (in this case it was just the relaxing tones of LockPickingLawyer) and I was kind of playing in a flow state in PoE…

> stimulatory addiction

This really seems to be it, for me. There's a "high" that comes with being productive. Multitasking lets you trick your brain into thinking its being productive, giving you the high without actually doing the work.

> What is really concerning is when I am watching something I actually want to pay full attention to on YouTube/Netflix, and I find myself opening a fresh tab to load up a second video before catching myself and realising it's ridiculous listening to two videos at once talking over each other.

This is so relatable. A lot of times I open up a window to get started on a project, and within 5 minutes I've absentmindedly opened youtube/reddit/discord/hn/wikipedia and started my way into a wormhole that will take at least an hour to get out of.

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

#202

Post by shakaijin »

vailprogrammer wrote: post #187
shakaijin wrote: post #177

I have been noticing the impact of excessive multitasking on myself lately, and I am now actively trying to avoid it. At first i thought that multitasking would increase my overall efficiency by filling in gaps of downtime in certain tasks, but it soon turned me into a person incapable of focusing on anything deeply. One day, I noticed that I am unable to read a book the same way i did as a child (cover to cover in o…

I'm curious, what is your approach to some of the most common distractions in society? Namely TV (youtube?), movies, video games, and social media. Personally I have completely removed TV, social media, and video games. I only watch 1, maybe 2 movies per month. I know that I am much much happier having removed those things from my life, but I still have a hard time focusing. Wondering what other steps I could take.

My current approach is probably dumb, but the main thing I am trying to eliminate is me unconsciously accessing distractions (Reddit, YouTube etc.). I have basically conditioned myself to always go to such sites, and my body just opens them, even when trying to focus on some task, without it being a conscious decision. I have partially solved this by blocking all distractions I usually go to with my DNS (PiHole), so every time I unconsciously try to access such sites I get an error and snap back into reality, so to speak. I do sometimes unblock things, but I make sure that it is a conscious decision.

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

#203

Post by trhway »

acituan wrote: post #129

Yet multitasking is still being branded as something of a higher cognitive functioning. Byung-Chul Han in The Burnout Society claims that it is the opposite: > “The attitude toward time and environment known as “multitasking’ does not represent civilisational progress. Human beings in the late-modern society of work and information are not the only ones capable of multitasking. Rather, such an aptitude amounts to reg…

>multitasking is still being branded as something of a higher cognitive functioning.

not surprisingly given that it is branded that way by the "multitaskers". I mean you wouldn't find many deep contemplative thinkers at the mid- or top-level of corporations or even of the whole society. These days the ability to deep contemplative thinking is more like a handicap relegating you into the rank-and-file.

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

#204

Post by georgewsinger »

There's something fishy about the "multitasking [and long working hours] is bad" fad of the past 10 years.

If I had to guess, it's that these studies aren't sensitive to the outliers. Imagine telling e.g. Elon Musk "multitasking and long hours are bad for your productivity".

I've been keeping very detailed data on my personal productivity for years, while taking all of the consensus wisdom ("long hours = bad", "multitasking = bad") to heart. What I've instead found is that long hours (literal 14+ hour days) makes me more consistently productive.

Multitasking also has a strong synergistic component to it that I suspect doesn't show up in these narrow studies.* If multitasking across different projects leads to insights that shave years off of your respective project plans, but otherwise makes you slower locally, it's still more than worth it. Again using Elon as an example: Tesla and SpaceX have been made mutually stronger by insights being cross applied the two enterprises.

* To be fair I'm speaking more of multitasking at the project level, not at the minute-to-minute level.

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

#205

Post by welterde »

georgewsinger wrote: post #204

There's something fishy about the "multitasking [and long working hours] is bad" fad of the past 10 years. If I had to guess, it's that these studies aren't sensitive to the outliers. Imagine telling e.g. Elon Musk "multitasking and long hours are bad for your productivity". I've been keeping very detailed data on my personal productivity for years, while taking all of the consensus wisdom ("long hours = bad", "multi…

Curious by which metric you are measuring productivity.

Also wouldn't it make quite a difference on what time scale you are multi-tasking? If it's on the time scale of days between context switches or hours/minutes.

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

#206

Post by filmfact »

georgewsinger wrote: post #204

There's something fishy about the "multitasking [and long working hours] is bad" fad of the past 10 years. If I had to guess, it's that these studies aren't sensitive to the outliers. Imagine telling e.g. Elon Musk "multitasking and long hours are bad for your productivity". I've been keeping very detailed data on my personal productivity for years, while taking all of the consensus wisdom ("long hours = bad", "multi…

But by focusing the on just one - SpaceX might be on Mars, and Tesla might have a real self-driving car.

Unfortunately it’s difficult to test that hypothesis. And it’s survivor bias to pick Elon Musk.

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

#207

Post by webdev23 »

calderarrow wrote: post #104

Somewhat of a personal tangent, but I exclusively use 1 screen, and rarely split windows or have more than 1 application open when working. When I need to bounce between code/browser, documentation/code, or email/HN, I use the alt/command-tab functionality. I find it slower having to switch between viewing different screens or moving my head, yet I'm the only one in my friend group who does this -- everyone else seem…

I’m just like you. In the afternoons, I switch from my monitor to just my laptop. I sometimes prefer a smaller screen so I experience less eyestrain

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

#208

Post by Moru »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #56
wvenable wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed the exact same thing. My son will constantly be doing multiple things at once -- watch a youtube video while playing a game, etc. Although when I was a kid a literally did everything with the TV on in the background.

And I did college physics homework with the tape deck running. (I'd turn it off when I really needed to focus, though...)

I would turn the stereo on so I could focus for homework. Always needed something in the background. I'm 47.

20 years ago I had no problem having three to five conversations running in private chats mediating between guild members, keeping notes about them so I could remember for next session and still grinding XP in demanding highlevel areas of an MMORPG.

Now? All quiet and maybe I can concentrate enough to finish one task at a time.

When I visit people with TV on in the background I have a very hard time to talk to anyone.

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

#209

Post by hungryforcodes »

georgewsinger wrote: post #204

There's something fishy about the "multitasking [and long working hours] is bad" fad of the past 10 years. If I had to guess, it's that these studies aren't sensitive to the outliers. Imagine telling e.g. Elon Musk "multitasking and long hours are bad for your productivity". I've been keeping very detailed data on my personal productivity for years, while taking all of the consensus wisdom ("long hours = bad", "multi…

Multitasking and doing many things in a long shift are not synonymous if those things are not interrupted. The damage of multitasking is the interruption and the consequent context switch.

Working 12-14 hours a day on a couple of things is more in line with deep work, which is actually very productive for alot of people.

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

#210

Post by refactor_master »

darkerside wrote: post #140
godot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will preface this by saying I agree with you. However, I'd like to point out (as someone else did too about downplaying the upside) -- if you did get rewarded with money, respect, promotions (decision making power), knowledge -- these are all real material gains from those long hours. True, from the business point of view, your extra hours didn't matter to the business in the long run. It did matter for your career…

I learned a lot and shipped a lot in the few "long hours" coding sessions I did in my life. Those returns then compound over the rest of your career. Just because parent post went overboard doesn't mean it's a bad idea for people to challenge themselves once in a while.

Absolutely. I wouldn’t dismiss a couple of day’s sprint. I’ve done those myself and accomplished a lot. Short-term “stress” and alertness have been evolved to be a very useful feature.

You just have to realize, like a good night out drinking, that you’re trading it for something in the other end.

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