Multi-Tasking Is A Myth

Stressed out professionals tend to multi-task. It gives people the feeling they’re getting more done and they wear it as a badge of honor. Spoiler alert! They’re very wrong.

The illusion of said productivity helps people feel more emotionally satisfied with their work, but in reality, multitasking isn’t really a thing.

Interferes With Brain Activity

Your prefrontal cortex is the area of your brain that is activated whenever you need to start paying attention to something. Both sides of your prefrontal cortex work together when you’re focusing on and carrying out a task, as they send signals to other areas of your brain.

Researchers in Paris at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM) discovered that when you add in another task, it requires each side of your brain to work alone. In their study, they asked participants to complete two tasks simultaneously while their brain function was being measured using an MRI. 

The results of the MRIs showed that when participants were given two tasks to perform simultaneously, the function of their brain split in half, which led to the participants forgetting details and making three times as many mistakes when compared to when they were focusing on just one task.

It’s important to remember that doing more than one natural task at the same time (such as talking and walking) is easier than trying to do more complicated tasks because natural tasks are less demanding on the prefrontal cortex.

Affect Your IQ

A study done by neuroscientists at the University of London found (through MRI scans) that participants who engaged in multitasking while completing cognitive tasks had a decline in their IQ score that was similar to people who had stayed awake all night.

Some of the participants in this study who were asked to multitask experienced an IQ drop of 15 points, which left the group of multitaskers with an average IQ similar to that of an 8-year-old. This means that daily multitasking actually damages the brain, resulting in a drop in intelligence.

This is due to the distraction that can be caused by executing multiple actions, which leads your brain to have a need to interpret what you’re doing all at once.

Reduce Concentration and Productivity Levels

So-called multitasking divides our attention. It makes it harder for us to give our full attention to one thing.

When working on a couple of tasks at once, like checking your email, talking on the phone, or writing reports, you can lose the focus required to complete one item adequately. If you are exposed to too many distractions, they can break your concentration and productivity.

For example, trying to complete additional tasks during a driving simulation led to poor driving performance, or people who frequently “media multitask” (like listening to music while checking email or scrolling through social media while watching a movie) are more distracted and less able to focus their attention even when they're performing only one task.

Changing our focus also keeps us from relying on our automatic behaviors to finish tasks quickly. When we're focused on a single task that we've done before, we can work on "autopilot," which frees up mental resources. Switching back and forth bypasses this process, and we tend to work more slowly as a result.

It can also affect our ability to learn, because in order to learn, we need to be able to concentrate. The more we multitask, the less we actually accomplish, because we slowly lose our ability to focus enough to learn. If we're constantly trying to multitask, we don't practice tuning out the rest of the word to engage in deeper processing and learning as well.

This will result in the drop of productivity levels as you can’t accomplish what you need to do in a timely manner.

Causes Anxiety and Stress

Being a multitasker will have a negative effect, both to the body and the cognitive state.

Multitaskers will experience a release of stress hormones and adrenaline in the bodies. The result can often became a vicious cycle of constant multitasking, requiring more time to complete a longer list of tasks, experiencing high stress, and multitasking even more to compensate. The constant high stress level can cause employees to become sick more, miss days of work, and decrease their overall work productivity.

Additionally, anxiety caused by multitasking in work environment can minimize productivity and negatively affect the company's profit.

A statement from Joseph Kassa, DO, a neurologist at the Michigan Institute for Neurological Disorders (MIND), further supported the idea that multitasking is causing anxiety and stress because, “when you're at work, and you've got four things to do, just the thought of this pile of tasks — let alone the possibility that your boss may swing by and add three more items to your list — can cause anxiety.

Conclusion

Doing one thing at a time is how our brains work, so try focusing on one thing at a time today. See how it feels and benefit you.

We at Xcidic are capitalizing on what it means being in the digital age. Keeping a high-level of productivity without sacrificing health is on the forefront of our working culture. Visit our website if you are interested.