Being multitasking is in fashion, considering oneself super efficient is like feeling a super power that people think they have to deal with the multiple demands of everyday life. They proudly express their superpower, understanding that they are better adapted to the context than others. However, research from Stanford University indicates that multitasking comes at a cost, and it doesn't seem to be trivial at all.
Imagine the following situation: you are working on your computer, participating in a meeting on Zoom, and answering messages on your WhatsApp. Sound familiar?
Or you are in a face-to-face meeting, where a colleague is presenting a project, but you are focused on answering the messages that are coming in on your WhatsApp.
You think you are in control, that you are managing to do all these things with the usual quality, but... you start to get more and more tired, you start to make mistakes, your thinking starts to slow down, you start to lose attention, and you start to forget; frustration goes on the rise as you realize that you can't remember something you know you know, it's on the tip of your tongue, but you can't remember it.
Research indicates that heavy multitasking, with more than three simultaneous sources of information, can interfere with working memory, cause us to perform less well, and even potentially create long-term memory problems.
It turns out that, as Kevin Paul Madore, a neuroscientist at Stanford University explains, "When we take on a task, several brain networks that deal with attention and cognitive control are involved. Heavy multitasking attempts can create interference between these networks, and this can lead to slower processing as well as increased errors."
"When you have competing sources of attention, your performance on the task will generally be reduced" - Madore.
Multitasking does not lead to greater productivity!
According to Daniel Golemanin multitasking:
- Quality is lost: with the coming and going of attention, many details are lost and there is a decrease in precision or speed
- More mental fatigue is generated: repeating this process over and over again wears you out faster than if you concentrate on just one thing. This can even cause stress.
- And it assumes less concentration and memory: the constant change of focus seems to impair both.
For Meyer, coordinator of the Brain Action and Cognition Lab at the University of Michigan:
"The world is experiencing a crisis of attention that is getting worse, much worse than people think. We are facing a cognitive plague that has the potential to erase the concentration and productive thinking of an entire generation."
This is why we promote a smarter education that enables to overcome noise and information overload.
It seems that the superpower we need is the ability to be indistractible, to pay attention, and to maintain attention for as long as it takes to do what we need to do.
