Most people believe they have a special gift for multitasking that allows them to save time when in reality it slows them down. Bradberry investigated research done at Stanford University and his findings were that “Multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time.” Finally, we can stop believing people who swear on multitasking.
Nonetheless, Bradberry found that not only is multitasking less productive but also it can lower a person’s IQ. “A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they’d expect if they had smoked marijuana or stayed up all night.” This is an interesting finding, but not at all surprising to me. All multitasking is, is moving back and forth between tasks quickly. Realistically, the brain is not wired to think about more than one thing at a time. When a person moves from one thing to the next, they aren’t fully concentrating on anything so how well are the tasks being performed? Not very well I would assume. Moreover, Bradberry also found that multitasking can cause brain damage. Researchers at the University of Sussex “Found that high multitaskers had less brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex” which is a region of the brain responsible for cognitive and emotional control. While more research can be done to find out more about the effects, it is safe to say that less brain density cannot be a good thing.
Multitasking sounds a lot better than it is and it is terrible for you. It does not make people complete their tasks faster and it most definitely is not good for brain health. I would argue that multitasking isn’t even a real thing. Yes, humans can move from one thing to the next quickly, but it is impossible to think about more than one thing at a time or write about more than one thing at a time.
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