Fortunately, I plan to be a lifelong learner because I am certain it will take at least that long to figure myself out.
This week I realized that I have been spending much of my time attempting to do something that the "experts" say is virtually impossible. Although I considered myself to be fairly good at what I thought to be an essential skill, in reality I have been exhausting my brain and getting less done while believing I was "multitasking." Life is starting to make more sense now.
I was under the presumption that "multitasking" is a necessary evil of today's busy living. How else would a person get everything accomplished? The thought of "single tasking" seemed to be such an inefficient use of time, although, admittedly, more relaxing.
Then, recently, I read a report that pretty well cleared things up. Researchers say that, according to their studies, most of the time we humans do not get more done by trying to do multiple things at once.
Apparently, most of us don't actually multitask well at all. Although we can look like we are doing two or more things at once, in reality our brains are simply jumping back and forth between activities, losing valuable time and efficiency in transition. This sounds exhausting and it is.
"Dividing attention across multiple activities is taxing on the brain, and can often come at the expense of real productivity," said Arthur Markman, a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He sounds like someone who should know these kinds of things.
He further suggests that only 10 percent of people have brains wired with the capability to truly multitask.
It seems fair to me that parents of 2-year-olds would be the ones to get first dibs on the multitasking brains, but I am not the one who gets to make that assignment.
Although practice makes perfect in some cases, psychologists don't present much hope that training the brain to multitask is a realistic option. By and large, a person's brain either has the ability or it doesn't, and around 90 percent of us fall into the "doesn't" category. For the majority, attempting to concentrate on two things at once results in overloading the brain's working memory. Now that I think about it, I am pretty sure I suffer from this "working memory overload" condition much of the time.
Some psychologists point out that, while our brains can't multitask on heavy cognitive tasks, we are typically good at brain power "time sharing" when it involves unrelated mental and physical resources. That means that simultaneously folding clothes while watching American Idol or eating cereal while reading the newspaper probably works just fine most of the time. But, when it comes to trying to multitask things that really take some concentration and heavy brain power, things get messy. We will probably either work much slower or start making mistakes and could wind up with that "the hurrier I go, the behinder I get" feeling.
These are just some thoughts to ponder, when the brain is clear of everything else, of course.
Annette Rowe is a freelance writer from rural Gentry and a speech-language pathologist at Siloam Springs High School. She may be reached by email at [email protected] expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 02/26/2014