Ever since I heard that multitasking is not something to boast about and that it’s impossible to be “good at it” (sorry to all those women who claim it as a badge of honour) I have been spreadign the word. Now I’m startin to realise I cant read as well as I used to. My brain is being shaped and not for the better!
“Although we think we’re doing several things at once, multitasking, this is a powerful and diabolical illusion. Earl Miller, a neuroscientist at MIT and one of the world experts on divided attention, says that our brains are “not wired to multitask well… When people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost in doing so.” So we’re not actually keeping a lot of balls in the air like an expert juggler; we’re more like a bad amateur plate spinner, frantically switching from one task to another, ignoring the one that is not right in front of us but worried it will come crashing down any minute. Even though we think we’re getting a lot done, ironically, multitasking makes us demonstrably less efficient.”
via Why the modern world is bad for your brain | Science | The Guardian.
