

 Multitasking is Dumbing us Down and Driving us Crazy - bfioca
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200711/multitasking

======
Leon
Something about this article feels wrong. Maybe it's the author's disdain for
technology, or the apparent hatred towards multi-tasking (the author brings up
the story of how he/she crashed while checking pictures on their camera while
it was raining - this is their fault, not the phones'). The whole article
seems like a, 'Remember the good ol' days when things were more simple?'
story, telling of how all our technology has made things worse and by golly we
should be concentrating on one thing only. Yet everyone multi-tasks, we were
designed to do it; our ancestors had to concentrate on hunting in groups, and
in doing so concentrate on their prey and communication among the group.

Sure, too much multi-tasking is probably a bad thing, as can be said about
anything, but it's so useful to multi-task. Everyone here is probably multi-
tasking five different browser windows with ten different tabs in each while
messaging and ssh'd into a server. It is just so efficient to concentrate on
the most we can handle at once.

This line cements this article for me as an ill-formed hate piece against
technology: "What has the madness of multitasking cost us? The better question
might be: What hasn't it?"

This line of reasoning is what I hear from religious fundamentalists about
science.

And is the author actually trying to blame multi-tasking for Enron and
Iraq?!?! Seriously, references are made towards how people were fooled by
enron's constant multi-tasking of corporate tax law, saying that people were
just too blazed by the sheer number of tasks in their everyday life to catch
them, and then references a quote later from Guiliani on the concentration of
US military power towards iraq, iran, afghanistan, implying in a low handed
way that were being suckered by the administration. This article is garbage.
This article isn't even about multi-tasking.

(also,) does (the author (really) like lisp (or something)(?))

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dejb
I gave up after the first page. Not because I was doing too many other things
but the article just seemed crap with no actual science content. With so many
other options life is too short short to read some no-content, neo-Luddite,
arts student rant. Maybe that is why these type of people don't like the
options provided by technology - it means that we don't have to read their
pretentious fluff.

~~~
gojomo
There _is_ science behind this -- and the article mentions it later -- but
Walter Kirn is a fiction writer and essayist rather than science/feature
reporter. So this is a narrative and meditation on the topic, rather than
survey or policy paper.

I thought the characterization of extreme multitasking and availability as a
sort of 'attention bubble' likely to pop was interesting.

Then again, I enjoyed Kirn's novel 'Up in the Air', as well as the movie
adaptation of his novel 'Thumbsucker'. And another of his articles at
Atlantic, 'Lost in the Meritocracy', is a vivid and cynical look at his
Princeton years that could interest News.YCers... if they have the attention
span. :)

~~~
dejb
OK fair enough. Maybe there was reasonable content later in the article. The
fact is that a lot of us can't afford to invest the time it takes to get
through this guy's life story in the hope of finding it. Ironically the very
people that the science content could have been more useful to are the ones
who don't have the time to read it.

------
ivankirigin
Right on!

Things that require concentration shouldn't be interrupted. If only people who
schedule meetings at typical corporate offices could understand that.

I'm convinced the cliche late night hacker has nothing to do with the time of
day. They'll eat the productivity hit because they're tired in order to boost
their work because they are alone and not distracted.

~~~
daniel-cussen
I agree. I figured out the reason I stayed up late in high school was because
that was the only time nothing interrupted me.

~~~
sgoraya
Agreed - I went through the same thing in HS and my parents used to bug me
about it at first; Since I got good grades though, they did not give me too
much grief about it ;)

Tangential, but my schedule lately has been pretty wacky according to some,
but I usually start most of my intensive tasks around 11pm and work till about
6-7am and then go to sleep till 1pm with another nap in the late afternoon;
This allows me to multi-task during the day!

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wallflower
If we continue the multi-task metaphor, i think it's the context-switching
that hurts the effectiveness of multi-tasking in work. If the interruption is
over instant messenger, it's not as bad. Sometimes I have to put on headphones
with loud music to cut out the white-noise office chatter.

1\. Coding for project 2\. Interruption from business analyst on
project/another project 3\. Write this-is-where-I-am-with-the-code to "mental"
disk 4\. Answer business analyst 5\. Resume coding 6\. "Mental" disk: File Not
Found (see 3)

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mattmaroon
I didn't really understand the article because I read it while doing 8 other
things, but I agree.

~~~
dawnerd
Seriously, talking in IRC and reading an article is hard.

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joshwa
Continuous Partial Attention ?

[http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/06/supernova_2005_2.h...](http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/06/supernova_2005_2.html)

------
eru
Anyone remember 'Knuth vs Email'? (<http://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html>)

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Tichy
However, I would really like to get a phone with a decent camera and GPS
support (should tag the photographs), but so far haven't found one. Any
recommendations?

------
mhb
I was startled but not surprised to find the inevitable links to two
additional pages after my initial interest had abated.

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mixmax
whats you mean multitaskcking slowing dumping us down? Im do fine and does ten
things at same time too!!!

------
initself
That article needs to get to the point.

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ajkirwin
Sadly, I read the entire thing. I know, I know. But it's 5am and I have
programmers block.

Now, I may speak for myself on this, but I think the problem is not so much
multi-tasking.. as it is being forced to switch ALL your focus from task to
task.

I mean, for instance, I have found I work best when I am listening to music,
chatting about something and coding as well. With things prioritized in my
head.

Like he quoted in the article, "We can walk and chew gum". Yes, we can. But we
don't walk, stop to chew some gum, stop chewing and start walking again.. ad
infinitum.

~~~
yters
Different parts of our mind are activated by different activities and stimuli,
so I'd say our mind can do certain things concurrently. I know doing something
kinetic (fidgety) can help my concentration.

