
Multitasking makes you dumb - joeyespo
http://sirupsen.com/multitasking-makes-you-dumb/
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lsh123
To say the least, the post is a worst possible example of "science":

1) Bad generalization: "Multitaskers actually become bad at multitasking, by
multitasking". Reading the referenced article, we can find out that it talks
not about generic multitasking but only "media consumption multitasking".

2) Incorrect conclusions: "Students who browse Facebook and instant messaging
while doing homework on average achieve lower grades in school". Really? Don't
you think that students who browse FB instead of doing homework are probably
bound to do worse in class not because of multitasking but because they are
just not interested in learning?

3) Just complete BS. "For instance, when driving and talking in cell phone,
our brain assigns a higher priority to responding to our the phone
conversation than focusing on the road." Really? The referenced article
doesn't even have the word "brain" in it. I would be very curious to find out
the source. And BTW, you should probably never fly in an airplane if you
believe this BS since pilots constantly listen and talk on the radio while
flying planes and navigating in the same time.

Yes, multitasking is not a "native" human skill. You have to learn how to do
it and some are better in doing it than others. Also, it is absolutely correct
that context switch has a price. However, you can learn how to do it
effectively. As the result, while you productivity in each individual task
will be impacted, the overall results will be better. And of course, one of
the skills is to learn the priorities of different tasks to make sure that
cell phone conversation is secondary to driving the car.

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readme
The empirical evidence presented by OP's blog post is far heavier than your
objections to it. You have some valid points, but so does he. All other things
equal, he has cited scientific studies and you haven't.

I am biased, because my reading has predisposed me to agree with OP that
multitasking is the antithesis of productivity, but that's just my .02.

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lsh123
If you read my comment, then you might see that my objections are about citing
"scientific studies" incorrectly.

~~~
readme
Well, not really. Lets take objection #2 as an example. You wrote:

""" 2) Incorrect conclusions: "Students who browse Facebook and instant
messaging while doing homework on average achieve lower grades in school". """

Which is a reasonable objection on the grounds that correlation does not imply
causation. But keep that in mind: does not imply. The fact that something does
not imply, does not mean it is necessarily false, or that the study was
useless! In fact, the study gives us a lot more information than we had
otherwise. So, it's better to draw an inference that's based on results, than
none at all.

You go on to say:

""" Really? Don't you think that students who browse FB instead of doing
homework are probably bound to do worse in class not because of multitasking
but because they are just not interested in learning? """

Which is a hypothesis completely untested! Perhaps you should do a study.

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rheide
The key concept here is 'context switching' and how fast you can do it.
Multitasking is considered bad because people switch contexts and lose bits of
information in the process. Some people can retain their context longer, or
have a workflow in which they can easily rebuild their context based on hints
(notes, to-do lists, mental mind-map).

In my case, whenever I'm working on some complicated bit of code and someone
interrupts me to ask a question, or to go to their desk, I have no problem
doing it because I am already immersed in the task and don't need to offload
it anywhere. If I realize that the talk is going to take longer than I though,
or if it is about something completely different from what I'm working on,
then I might scribble myself a quick note to get my mind back in the state
that I need to be in.

Or another example: assisting two different people with two different
programming problems via chat, while myself working on a third one, but all in
the same codebase. There's not a lot of context switching required because
we're all sharing the same code and are all in the same mindset. My
productivity in terms of my own code does decrease using this method, but it's
still more productive than taking the time to go and sit with each individual
person to go through their problems one by one.

tl;dr: multitasking is impractical in some situations, but there are
situations where you can benefit from it. I think it's a useful skill to be
able to create those kind of situations for yourself (and your team).

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Kaivo
I totally agree with this article. I've been playing a lot of video games in
the past, always with the T.V. on, all while doing my homeworks and reading my
school notes. I failed a few classes during that period of my life, and I
finished pre-university a year later than expected. It turns out that it
didn't pay off at all.

At the moment, I'm in University while working full-time, and my grades are
where they should have been years ago. I'm getting As most of the time, and I
believe it has a lot to do with how I handle my tasks. Since I'm only doing
two classes at a time, I try to focus on one a week, on the other the next. I
try to never work on two different subjects on the same day and I even force
myself to avoid reading some article and trying new things because it would
take my focus away from what I really have to do.

Dedicating our attention on one subject at a time always turns out better.

~~~
alayne
Anecdotes like yours don't prove anything. That's why we have science.

Without a control group and test group we don't know if your conclusions are
statistically valid. Maybe most people get better grades when they watch TV
and play video games.

~~~
Kaivo
I probably mis-worded my thoughts. I did not meant "it's true for x therefore
it's true for the whole set". It's definetly not something we can generalize.
At least, we can say that he's not completely wrong.

Nevertheless, I still believe that if such study was conducted, it would tend
in that direction. The actual difference between a multi-tasker and a uni-
tasker might not be very large, there might even not be any difference in some
cases. Considering how the memory supposedly works, I find it hard to believe
that one would retain the equivalent amount of information while multi-tasking
than while uni-tasking.

This is a study from 2007 that goes in the same direction. It focuses on the
impacts of social networking sites on high-schooler grades.
[pdf]<http://www.iiisci.org/journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/E214BL.pdf>

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readme
Multitasking is for people who don't have to do work that requires deep
concentration.

Concentration and multitasking are mutually exclusive. If you can't tell this
from your own experience, then I implore you to actually check the literature
out there.

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darrencauthon
I think part of the drawbacks of multi-tasking is attitude. The multi-taskers
I've known have taken their approach as a sign of their intelligence, as if
doing _just one thing_ at a time is below their capabilities. They act as if
they've tapped some special, hidden potential of the human brain that common
people don't understand. Yet despite their super-human powers, they're often
one or two tasks away from completing everything they're supposed to finish.

Their work is best described as achieving "limit as work approaches done."
They continue to work on something, they get closer to completing it, but you
could give them an infinite amount of time and they'd never finish.

I'll take devs who can focus on one task and complete it.

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pav3l
Ok, here goes my highly controversial sweeping generalization: _men suck at
multitasking, women are actually much better at it_. My source? Just years of
active observation. I'd be very interested to see any actual research on the
subject.

~~~
jff
Well, riding my motorcycle on the California freeways has shown me that women
seem much more skilled than men at simultaneously driving, texting, adjusting
the radio, and running over motorcyclists ("I just didn't see him there!")

~~~
dunmalg
"and running over motorcyclists ("I just didn't see him there!")"

I'd call you sexist, but my sample size of one smashed femur by a female left
turner who didn't see me fails to disprove your theory.

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polskibus
Aside from whether this article is right and accurate, can anyone share
research-backed tips on how to get back from multitasking habit to
singletasking? During career development ,for example from developer to
manager, people take on more and more various duties and have to start
multitasking. Is there a way to curb such performance deteriorating trend?

~~~
mbesto
It's simple, ignore surrounding tasks and duties.

~~~
polskibus
I'm afraid it's not that simple, unless you want to change your job
,'downgrade' to programmer and accept pay decrease. You could be lucky, but
still changing back to lower rank often means less power over product's final
shape, which you don't really want to give up. Anyone there with a more
practical advice?

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jebblue
The problem test domain was inverted. Multitaskers see the water fall because
they are not focused on singing Kum ba yah. The ones in the test set were told
to ignore blue; they were really thinking why would they tell me to ignore
blue. Blue has color, it has purpose, it must be relevant and when it is they
would be the only ones to see the pattern thus making them true folk legends.

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adrianmn
Generalization is what makes you dumb.

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nerdfiles
There's a relationship between these two themes of "multitasking iz 4 n00bz"
and "dropping friends who are not makers/builders/hackers/achievers/doers" but
who ruminate and cannot fix their problems.

