By Emily Keller
We all think that we can multitask, but can we really multitask? Everyone says that that they are good at multitasking. However, our brains cannot focus on more than one task at a time. Today, I’m going to tell you why our brains cannot focus on more than one task at a time.
According to the American Psychological Association, doing more than one task a time takes a toll on you not only physically, but mentally as well. Now let’s be honest, we have all probably either texted and drove, use the Bluetooth in our cars, or just use our phones in general while driving. Some people, including myself find that listening to music while driving helps us focus while we drive or while we are studying, but our brains still multitask in those moments as well. According to the American Psychological Association, psychologists who study the brain studied the brain when the brain was trying to perform more than one task at a time. They found that the brain was not made for vigorous multitasking. According to the American Psychological Association, there was a study done in the mid 1990’s done by Dr. Robert Rogers and Dr. Stephen Monsell. This study found that when individuals had to switch entirely on what they were expected to do from 2-4 jobs between 2-4 times, they were still really slow on switching jobs versus when they did the job repeatedly.According to a study done by Borst, Taatgen, and van Rijin; the main problem for conjectures of multitasking is to tell when the different tasks interfere with one another. To make sure that what they saw is actually what they saw algorithmic mental copies were came up with by using threaded cognition within the context of the intellectual planning ACT-R (Anderson, 2007). They did an experiment where they had people observe 2 different things at the same time to see how well people could multitask.In another experiment, they tested 200 individuals in a driving simulation where they were doing one task and 2 tasks. The 2 tasks involved driving while listening to a very high demanding listening version if the OSPAN task (Watson, J.M., Strayer, D.L. Supertaskers). However, most of the individuals who participated in this experiment showed a very significant performance in the amounts where they had to perform 2 tasks.
Apparently to an extent, social media has an affect on multitasking as well. Like I said before, listening to music while working on an assignment or driving is considered multitasking. This study was done recently. According to this article by Jennifer Lee, they did a study with 130 college students where they did a 16 minute reading knowledge test and the college students were allowed to do this under 3 conditions. They did it in pure quiet, they watched a video that they weren’t tested on, and then they had to watch a video that they were going to be tested on. The study found that the college students who had to do the reading in complete silence did better than the students who had to get tested on a video that they were watching. This study concluded the brain function plays a key part in how much information is kept in the brain when they are performing more than one task at a time (Jennifer Lee).Multitasking can also affect your studying. According to an article by Pashler and a whole lot of other authors of this article, students tend to multitask when they study because they think that it helps them. There were 3 studies done that disproved this. They had the participants had to read short history articles while also having conversations with other people. Even with the 3 different experiments, they found that when the history story wasn’t paused, the interruptions were decreased significantly.As one can see, your brain physically cannot multitask. People think that they are good at multitasking, but there are many studies that prove otherwise. Today, I just told you about some studies that have been done, but there are may more out there that say that your brain physically cannot multitask. Trust me, I have felt the same way, I think that I can multitask sometimes but in all actuality I know that my brain physically can’t. Even knowing that I physically cannot multitasking, I still think that I can multitask because I personally think that listening to music while I drive helps me focus. While in actuality, I’m actually multitasking without even knowing it. The brain is fascinating in so many ways, I can’t even explain it. So when people ask you if you’re good at multitasking, don’t say yes. Blow their minds and say scientifically your brain physically cannot focus on more than one task at a time.ReferencesBorst, J. P., Taatgen, N. A., & van Rijn, H. (2010). The problem state: A cognitive bottleneck in multitasking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36(2), 363–382. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018106Watson, J.M., Strayer, D.L. Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17, 479–485 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.4.479Psychological Association, American. “Multitasking: Switching Costs.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 2006, www.apa.org/research/action/multitask.Jennifer Lee, Lin Lin & Tip Robertson (2012) The impact of media multitasking on learning, Learning, Media and Technology, 37:1, 94-104, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2010.537664Pashler, Harold, et al. “Does Multitasking Impair Studying? Depends on Timing.” Wiley Online Library, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 18 Mar. 2013, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/acp.2919.