Is Multitasking Bad For Us?

WORDS: JOANNA ROBERTS

Multitasking has long been hailed as the Holy Grail of modern life. If we can multitask, the theory goes, our lives will be better: we’ll be able to simultaneously write a report, answer the phone and email the boss, while also effortlessly juggling the balance of home, work and social life.

In our multimedia world, we can work anywhere, at any time and have access to all the information we need. Our lives are less delineated: the Internet, in particular, has blurred boundaries and made it easier for us to merge tasks. We can combine childcare with working online, study with watching TV and phoning friends with grocery shopping.
But busier doesn’t necessarily mean more productive. If you’re constantly checking your email, tweets and rss feeds, texting or talking on the phone, listening to people while watching a presentation or checking your blackberry while in a meeting, are you actually doing anything effectively?

Technically, multitasking is possible, even beneficial. If you’ve ever come out of a meeting to find your agenda covered in stick men then you probably enhanced your memory of what was discussed. Professor Jackie Andrade from the University of Plymouth found that people who doodled while listening to information could recall facts better than those who ‘concentrated’ on the task. “Doodling helps because it takes just enough mental effort to stop you daydreaming, without itself being as effortful and disruptive as daydreaming,” she says. If our brains are under-occupied, our minds will wander.

Read more about 'Is Multitasking Bad For Us?' in the Soring 2010 issue of WMB, on newsstands now!