Our brains are designed to focus on one thing at a time, and bombarding them with information only slows them down.
MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller notes 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.”
http://observer.com/2016/02/multitasking-is-killing-your-brain/
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Your Devices Are Probably Eroding Your Productivity
https://science.slashdot.org/story/16/10/18/2227259/why-your-devices-are-probably-eroding-your-productivity
University of California, San Francisco neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley and California State University, Dominguez Hills professor emeritus Larry Rosen explain in their book “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World” why people have trouble multitasking, and specifically why one’s productivity output is lowered when keeping up with emails, for example.
All That Multitasking is Harming, Not Helping Your Productivity. Here’s Why.
https://ww2.kqed.org/futureofyou/2016/10/17/your-devices-are-probably-lowering-your-productivity-heres-why/
I’ll admit it. I even take my phone with me to fire off a few texts when I go to the restroom. Or I’ll scroll through my email when I leave the office for lunch. My eyes are often glued to my phone from the moment I wake up, but I often reach the end of my days wondering what I’ve accomplished.
My productivity mystery was solved after reading “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High Tech World,” by University of California, San Francisco neuroscientist Dr. Adam Gazzaley and California State University, Dominguez Hills professor emeritus Larry Rosen. The book explains why the brain can’t multitask, and why my near-obsessive efforts to keep up on emails is likely lowering my productive output.
“The prefrontal cortex is the area most challenged,” Gazzely says. “And then visual areas, auditory areas, and the hippocampus — these networks are really what’s challenged when we are constantly switching between multiple tasks that our technological world might throw at us.”
When you engage in one task at a time, the prefrontal cortex works in harmony with other parts of the brain, but when you toss in another task it forces the left and right sides of the brain to work independently. The process of splitting our attention usually leads to mistakes.
If you’re working on a project and you stop to answer an email, research shows, it will take you nearly a half-hour to get back on task.
We think the mind can juggle two or three activities successfully at once, but Gazzaley says we woefully overestimate our ability to multitask.
“An example is when you attempt to check your email while on a conference call,” says Gazzaley. “The act of doing that makes it so incredibly obvious how you can’t really parallel process two attention-demanding tasks.”
Answering an Email Takes A Lot Longer Than You Think
In other words, repetitively switching tasks lowers performance and productivity because your brain can only fully and efficiently focus on one thing at a time.
Research has found that high-tech jugglers struggle to pay attention, recall information, or complete one task at a time.
“When they’re in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, they’re not able to filter out what’s not relevant to their current goal,” says Stanford neuroscientist Anthony Wagner. “That failure to filter means they’re slowed down by that irrelevant information.”
But don’t worry. Gazzaley says. It’s not about opting out of technology. In fact, there’s a time and place for multitasking. If you’re in the midst of a mundane task that just has to get done, it’s probably not detrimental to have your phone nearby or a bunch of tabs open. The distractions may reduce boredom and help you stay engaged. But if you’re finishing a business plan, or a high-level writing project, then it’s a good idea to set yourself up to stay focused.