Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018) • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by groby_b » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #213

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you noticed that your inability to just “read a book” differs by genre? I suffer from that with pretty much any fiction, but can still lose afternoons reading a well-written history or scientific explainer.

Not op, but yes. It is not just difference in genre. The books that appeared to me as awesome when I was younger are completely uninteresting now. I try to read and switch into twitter within three pages. But, once in a while I run into completely different book and cant stop reading it. Books that I would find boring back then I think. Like you, I read way more well-written history now, but there is also occasional…

The market isn't dominated by youth needs. It might seem that way because your selection shrinks over time, but try this model:

Finding good books is a multi-armed bandit problem, and most of us follow intuitively a strategy well suited to that - explore (figure out which levers to pull, or which kinds of writing you care about, by randomly pursuing) and exploit (pick things that you know to be good because you spent time evaluating).

As you age, you're becoming more discerning, because you now know better what's possible, and you know better what suits you. But since the landscape is, for practical purposes, infinite, you also face the hill climbing problem of local maxima. That's why picking new random books in different areas works - it allows you to get "unstuck", and possibly find new maxima.

This also means - sorry - that at some point "well-written history" won't really do it for you any more, either. You'll have explored that landscape enough to become stuck on a local maximum. It will be something like "I really enjoy books about 1600-1800 by these five authors, it's just the best". And then you've read all those, and hopefully something entirely different crosses your path.

Enjoy the ride :)

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

#272

Post by john61 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

ex3xu wrote: post #214

john61 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing polyphonic music like Bach Fugues requires an enormous amount of focused attention and executive function. Relying on muscle memory alone does not work at all for me and all musicians I know that play polyphonic Bach music.

I think as musical training increases, the amount of energy required for specific kinds of bimanual motor coordination tasks decreases, see Haslinger, 2004 [0]. Regardless, looking at the literature, logitudinal studies seem to indicate that playing polyphonic music seems to improve brain plasticity rather than cause damage. Maybe the damage is more related to the context switching aspect of multitasking. [0]: https:…

In my personal experience playing polyphonic music is extremely fast context switching. That is, you can not sing two melodies at the same time, but you can switch very fast between them if you sing in your head mentally. That enables polyphonic piano playing / hearing.

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

#273

Post by twh270 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

LeftHandPath wrote: post #200

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 have noticed it as well, but I haven't gotten to the point of doing anything about it yet. If I'm playing a video game, I have to be listening to a podcast. If I'm reading a book, I have to check the news every few minutes. If I'm writing code, I have to turn on some sort of background noise. The only times I'm productive are when I, by some accident, get past the initial discomfort of doing only one thing, and get…

I strongly encourage you to do something about it now, not later. It gets harder to fix the longer you let it go.

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

#274

Post by ganzuul » Wed, May 05, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

wlll wrote: post #262

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 bet they're not taking a lot of it in. Youth might convey certain enhanced abilities to switch between tasks efficiently denied to older people, but I'm willing to bet that even at the simple level of "computer game while on a call" sacrifices some of the attention of one of those things. Related, my kids make grumpy faces when I tell them to turn off "background" Netflix or YouTube while they're doing their homewo…

> Related, my kids make grumpy faces when I tell them to turn off "background" Netflix or YouTube while they're doing their homework.

Are you aware of the reason why you are doing this? Have you examined your reasoning as thoroughly as the faces of your children seem to tell you? Do parts of your body feel numb?

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

#275

Post by twh270 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

arichard123 wrote: post #253

How do I know when I am multitasking? If I am cooking a meal, and that meal has several items on the go at once, am I multitasking? What if I have a complicated coding problem with multiple requirements which I have to consider, perhaps with political implications, so that I'm switching my thinking from a technical viewpoint, to a user experience viewpoint, to a "what will the leadership think" viewpoint? Is that mul…

For me, it's when I am consciously paying attention to more than one thing either "at the same time" (watching YouTube while cooking) or in rapid succession (run unit tests in the IDE, check email, look at story in JIRA, look at the weather on my phone, go back to the IDE to fix a failing test, ...).

I was in this mode for years, racing around on overdrive, and I've been slowly learning to do One. Thing. At. A. Time. again. It's been hard because the habit is so ingrained. And probably also because it 'feels' like I'm less productive.

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

#276

Post by elliotec » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

shoto_io wrote: post #222

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 have some practical question: - Is sitting in a meeting, listening and taking notes multi-tasking? - Is listening to a podcast while jogging multi-tasking? - Cooking and talking to friends on the phone?

Yes

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

#277

Post by fallingfrog » Wed, May 05, 2021, 6:22 PM UTC

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…

This describes having children pretty well. You’re always just jumping in to rescue them from themselves all day long. There’s no time to have a single coherent thought or even spit out a sentence- it’s just single words. “Off! Fingers fingers! Shoes! Out!”

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

#278

Post by watwut » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:00 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #271

watwut wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not op, but yes. It is not just difference in genre. The books that appeared to me as awesome when I was younger are completely uninteresting now. I try to read and switch into twitter within three pages. But, once in a while I run into completely different book and cant stop reading it. Books that I would find boring back then I think. Like you, I read way more well-written history now, but there is also occasional…

The market isn't dominated by youth needs. It might seem that way because your selection shrinks over time, but try this model: Finding good books is a multi-armed bandit problem, and most of us follow intuitively a strategy well suited to that - explore (figure out which levers to pull, or which kinds of writing you care about, by randomly pursuing) and exploit (pick things that you know to be good because you spent…

That sounds like awful lot of work for very little gain.

Which is exactly the difference between market that is dominated by people like you and the one that does not. I don't need to go out of way to explore to find tv series I will like. That market is clearly dominated by people like me.

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

#279

Post by meristohm » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

rolandog wrote: post #217

watwut wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not op, but yes. It is not just difference in genre. The books that appeared to me as awesome when I was younger are completely uninteresting now. I try to read and switch into twitter within three pages. But, once in a while I run into completely different book and cant stop reading it. Books that I would find boring back then I think. Like you, I read way more well-written history now, but there is also occasional…

Or, have we become boring? I've noticed I have outgrown some things I loved as a young adult, like most videogames; though I don't know if it's just me being anti-commercial stuff, trying to avoid becoming a pay-to-win customer, and more of a buy-once customer.

It’s okay to move on. Maybe you not liking videogames is boring to those who still enjoy them? I’ve moved on from most games and it feels like fresh air, in part because I used games as a generally-unhealthy escape (as one might do with alcohol, I now play games in celebration rather than habitually or to escape emotions). It feels healthy to reevaluate how I spend money and time.

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

#280

Post by Graffur » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #133

Graffur wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe your current job and company?

No, but if you have a less open ended question then I'm happy to answer.

I am wondering what type of work you found that was better suited to the conclusions of your experiences.