Multi-tasking Can Adversily Affect Productivity

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It seems like, at least in recent years, brain research has become a hot topic in scientific explorations, especially multi-tasking. Multi-tasking has become more and more significant in modern life because living in a fast-paced world because people have to accomplish all the tasks they required to do within a limited time interval. Under such stressful life, it seems like multi-tasking is always beneficial if people have to find out ways to fulfill all their tasks. However, can multi-tasking always rescue us from tons of assignments that we are assigned to finish? Unfortunately, according to some results from several authoritative methodical researches, efficiency cannot always be guaranteed by multi-tasking and sometimes multi-tasking can even adversely influence people’s productivity on their tasks.
At this point, we may wonder that why sometimes multi-tasking can negatively influence people’s plans. To obtain the answer to this question, we have to take a look at how multi-tasking is functioned by our brain systems. Several researches were conducted to study this and as one of the pioneers, UCLA psychological department has acquired some achievements on this subject. In an article named Multi-tasking Adversely Affects Brain’s Learning, UCLA Psychologists Report, UCLA specialists showed the fact using one experiment. The experiment was conducted by “functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI)” () in order to show brain exercise. During the experiment, participants were asked to make predictions about the shapes of cards. The cards were divided into two different groups. With one set of cards, they learned without interruption while with another set of cards, they performed multi-tasking, which refers to listening to annoyi...

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...operation of different parts of our brains while we can be hurt by it if we lose our concentration on our assignments or over use technology in our studies. Nonetheless, our own attitudes toward multi-tasking decide what role it plays in our own lives. What we should do to raise efficiency from multi-tasking is learn to determine when is the right time to use it with the help of various results from scientific researches and find out our own methods to avoid the shortcomings of multi-tasking. Don’t always say no to it. It definitely can help people if they are put at the right place.

Works Cited

Lewin,Tarrar. “If Your Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably On Line.” NewYork Times.

20 January 2010. Web. April 12, 2014.

UCLA. “Multi-tasking Adversely Affects Brain’s Learning, UCLA Psychologists Report.” Science daily. 26 July. 2006.Web. April 12, 2009.

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