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Multitasking can make you loose focus
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Multitasking may seem convenient but deceptively costly. Multitasking has been scientifically proven to damage your brain and everyday function. Multitasking is digging people in a hole that they are not aware of. Although, many people believe they are multitasking when they are truly not. People need to quit multitasking because the brain is trained to focus on one thing at a time. It’s impossible to put your full effort into something if you are multitasking. Trying to focus the brain on more than one thing is quite difficult. Earl Miller an MIT neuroscientist has found that many believe they are multitasking when they’re really just moving from one task to the next quickly. This has put many people at false
In the chapter “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” from The New Brain, written by Richard Restak, Restak makes some very good points on his view of multitasking and modern technology. He argues that multitasking is very inefficient and that our modern technology is making our minds weaker. Multitasking and modern technology is causing people to care too much what other people think of them, to not be able to focus on one topic, and to not be able to think for themselves.
Many would remark that multitasking is a skill that can be trained like all others. However, a lot of neuroscience has went into proving that multitasking is a myth altogether. The article “The Myth of Multitasking” is written by Nancy K. Napier for Psychology today is here to debunk the myth of the brain’s capability to multitask. The article states that the brain is incapable of doing two things at once. Instead, the way that we fool ourselves into thinking that we can multitask is how quickly our brain switches from one task to another. Our brains can’t perform tasks simultaneously as our focus is a narrow beam. So, to compensate for this, our brain switches between these two tasks very quickly, almost as if we are doing them at the same
Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to a large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study “Your Brain on Computers” reports that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, is claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. (Crovitz 353) As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distr...
In the article, “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” Alina Tugend centralizes around the negative effects of multitasking. She shows that often with multitasking, people tend to lose focus, lack work quality, have an increase in stress, and in the end she gives a solution to all these problems. Tugend conveys her points by using understandable language, a clear division of subjects, and many reliable sources, making her article cogent.
Multitasking requires that a worker divides his/her time and energy on multiple tasks at the same time. As a result, the care and attention to detail is divided. The amount of focus that could be used to review one assignment is split. In an experiment, Patterson (2017) discovered that students who studied while participating in media multitasking took longer to complete tasks in their classes. This experiment addresses media multitasking in the case of students. While it is not a type of multitasking we normally consider, it does involve performing multiple tasks at one. Instead of putting all of their focus on their assignments, these students’ attention is on the assignment and on their social media. The results of the experiment prove that it when placed in scenarios where people are required to focus on multiple things, it takes more time to complete certain tasks. In this instance, media multitasking caused a decrease in performance. In another experiment, Paridon and Kaufmann (2010) made an observation when studying multitasking in the workplace, stating that people’s reaction time diminished when multiple tasks were completed at once. The believe that multitasking affects people’s performance has also been proven to be true in the workplace, as the speed of people’s production when down when required to complete multiple tasks. Performance can be determined by the speed in which a task is completed.
Attention refers to the cognitive process of selecting concentrating on aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. Focused attention refers to the ability to respond tactile or discretely to stimuli. The human brain divides attention in two style, either, automatic attention or controlled attention. Automatic attention is a specific stimulus that does not interfere with the other mental processes and needs little effort. The controlled attention is mainly relies on serial processing, and affects other mental processes, of which it is responsible for self-regulation (Jamie Hale, 2012). Divided attention takes pace when we are required to do two tasks or even more at the same time and all the tasks require attention. Driving a car whistling chatting on a mobile phone is a good example of a divided attention. While operating with a divided attention while multi-tasking, at least one of the tasks attention declines.
Today we live in a society where everything is seconds away from us. With the advances and affordability of quality technology, you would be hard pressed to find someone without a smartphone, laptop, or tablet, possibly all at the same time. Because of the accessibility we find that, in our tech-savvy culture, multitasking has not just become an art form of sorts, but rather an expectation. In the article “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” Alina Tugend sets out to explore the idea that although multitasking appears to show productivity, it could be doing the opposite. Throughout her article, Tugend uses studies done by neurologists and psychologists to show how in a world that sees multitasking as an expectation it has actually made us less efficient. She proposes, through studies, that although you might be working on multiple tasks it is as if you’re playing tennis with multiple balls (Tugend, 725).
Technology has been always improving over the decades, and now it has improved to the point where it’s a part of a human being’s life. People can’t imagine living without technology anymore nowadays, and especially college students who are always on their phones and laptops during lectures. That leads to what is known as multitasking, which is the ability to take care of more than one task at the same time. Multitasking has been popularized by students, and specifically college students who think that they are actually successful at doing it. Unfortunately, according to Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, after testing students who think they are brilliant at multitasking, results showed that they are terrible at every aspect of multitasking; consequently, it is not successful.
In this modern era, it has become commonplace to try and accomplish as many tasks as possible as quickly as possible in order to be more efficient. With the help of technology, many believe that multitasking is becoming a required and helpful skill. Multitasking is actually a detrimental habit. Multitasking divides a person's concentration in order to attempt to complete multiple actions. Even though in the end the tasks are all finished, the quality of the finished task and the time required to finish all the tasks makes multitasking very inefficient. In addition, this division of concentration is causing many people to not pay attention. For most, multitasking is a disadvantageous skill that should not be encouraged as a valid method of completing assignments. The majority of people who multitask may think that they are getting a lot of tasks done and gaining tons of information at the same time. However, most multitasking reduces one's ability to retain information and concentrate, it diminishes efficiency, and it creates stress.
A few points to consider of the argument about multitasking would include the effect on students’ lives, and learning environment. One could ask any older or younger college student about to
Multitasking is something we partake in daily, the need to be working on as many tasks as humanly possible has infected every facet of our lives. From the constant barrage of technology, the rush in which we approach household chores and the perceived godliness of multitasking at work, we are taught from a young age that we make the best use of our time when multitasking. Recent studies, however, have shown that multitasking can lead to significant loss in productivity, long-term health problems, trouble retrieving stored information and potentially serious accidents. While multitasking may be fine in a pinch, we should, as a society, place greater significance on the ability to focus on one task at a time. This will lead to a less stressed,
Alzahabi, Reem, and Mark W. Becker. "The Association Between Media Multitasking, Task-Switching, And Dual-Task Performance." Journal Of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception & Performance 39.5 (2013): 1485-1495. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.
The phenomenon of ‘Divided attention’ is the idea that an individual has the ability to divide their attention between two or more tasks (multi- tasking). Focused attention models such as Broadbent’s theory, Treisman’s theory and Deutsch and Deutsch model explains how all our inputs are focused on one task at a time, however it is clear from looking at everyday life that we are able to divide our attention, successfully being able to complete more than one task at the same time.
The popular belief that multitasking is efficient, and the new-age generation is hard wired for multitasking, is highly misguided. Truth is, effective multitasking is an oxymoron. It’s not uncommon to see a person texting while walking down the street, listening to music while doing homework, or staring at a computer screen with multiple tabs and windows open. It’s hard not to multitask, given the amount of work people have to do and the non-stop information being thrown at them. People will do it as a force of habit; they think it will help them accomplish more tasks in a shorter time period. More often than not, they find it being the complete opposite. The brain can only process one activity at a time; instead, it switches gears, which takes time, reduces accuracy, distracts, and hinders creative thoughts. So, the real question should be: is multitasking actually worth the time? No, multitasking negatively affects people in all aspects of their life.
We all multitask but in a different way. Multitasking is an ability to perform more than one task simultaneously. Some of us might be experts at multitasking and some are not good at all. But, is it a good idea to multitask? Imaging a man on his phone texting. He walks in the subway station while continuing looking at his phone. By accident, he falls into the train tracks. Luckily, there was no train coming on that platform, and he got pulled out of the tracks and lived. While some may believe that multitasking people can accomplish more than other people who don’t multitask, multitasking, in fact, could be dangerous by causing distraction and decline our productivity.