How does multitasking ruin our lives and what can we do about it?
Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2025 4:19 am
The growing understanding that multitasking is damaging the brain and reducing productivity is taking hold, but that doesn't stop you from checking social media while writing a report. Neuroscientist Ben Holmes explains how rapid switching between tasks affects the brain, what the consequences might be, and how to prevent them.
Problem
Let's imagine ourselves for a moment at work, school, or doing chores around the house. The specific location doesn't matter—what matters is that we imagine ourselves somewhere where we have to complete a specific task.
Now imagine that you get a text message from a friend and your phone vibrates in your pocket. What do you do? If you’re like me and the vast majority of people, you’ll at least pick up your phone and read the message. After that, you can reply to it, right? You’ll find that you have a few more unread emails. You better check them now, they might be important. Now let’s get back to work. What did you stop at? Oh yeah, the marketing report. Let’s see what the last one said. Got it, time to move on. You’re writing two sentences. Your phone vibrates again. Has he already replied to me? Let’s see what it is.
A familiar cycle? For many of us, this is probably the default mode. We are surrounded by a constant stream of information, our attention jumping back and forth like a crazed shopper trying to find the shortest line at the supermarket. The irony is that by performing these jumps, you can always be in the shortest line, but never make it to the checkout.
This flow of information seems natural, but only because we’re so used to it that we can’t imagine not having it. Leaving home without our phones makes us feel vulnerable and so focused on potentially missed news that we don’t notice what’s right in front of us. But it wasn’t always like that.
Before the widespread use of email and mobile phones, this kind of information flow did not exist, and it was not expected that you would need to be constantly present. Telephones were landlines, but people did spain number data not consider themselves attached to them, so no one expected you to answer every phone call or return it within a few minutes, when you might be away for hours. Mail took days, not seconds, to deliver, so there was no rush to respond.
Consequences
There are obviously many benefits to high-speed communication, but unfortunately, our brains are not exactly designed for it. They are not designed to multitask. In fact, they are not capable of it at all. Studies have shown over and over again that what we call multitasking is the costly, rapid switching between tasks.
The first price we pay is metabolic. Daniel J. Levitin, a professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience, reveals the physiological details of this process in his best-selling book, The Organized Mind. In short, constant attentional switching forces the brain to consume large amounts of oxygen-rich glucose, which is also needed to continue working. Depleting this fuel compromises our cognitive and physical performance and can lead to increased anxiety, impulsivity, and aggression.
Furthermore, most of the tasks we switch between require decision-making (Which evening this week can I set aside for dinner with a friend? Should I pick up the phone or not? Which email should I answer first?). Decision-making also burns a lot of brain fuel, and it does so regardless of the importance of the situation: small decisions consume just as much energy as large ones. So if we regularly overload our neural systems with small decisions, our brains become exhausted. As a result, we may make a terrible decision in an important situation because our brains are exhausted from the thousands of small choices we make throughout the day.
Problem
Let's imagine ourselves for a moment at work, school, or doing chores around the house. The specific location doesn't matter—what matters is that we imagine ourselves somewhere where we have to complete a specific task.
Now imagine that you get a text message from a friend and your phone vibrates in your pocket. What do you do? If you’re like me and the vast majority of people, you’ll at least pick up your phone and read the message. After that, you can reply to it, right? You’ll find that you have a few more unread emails. You better check them now, they might be important. Now let’s get back to work. What did you stop at? Oh yeah, the marketing report. Let’s see what the last one said. Got it, time to move on. You’re writing two sentences. Your phone vibrates again. Has he already replied to me? Let’s see what it is.
A familiar cycle? For many of us, this is probably the default mode. We are surrounded by a constant stream of information, our attention jumping back and forth like a crazed shopper trying to find the shortest line at the supermarket. The irony is that by performing these jumps, you can always be in the shortest line, but never make it to the checkout.
This flow of information seems natural, but only because we’re so used to it that we can’t imagine not having it. Leaving home without our phones makes us feel vulnerable and so focused on potentially missed news that we don’t notice what’s right in front of us. But it wasn’t always like that.
Before the widespread use of email and mobile phones, this kind of information flow did not exist, and it was not expected that you would need to be constantly present. Telephones were landlines, but people did spain number data not consider themselves attached to them, so no one expected you to answer every phone call or return it within a few minutes, when you might be away for hours. Mail took days, not seconds, to deliver, so there was no rush to respond.
Consequences
There are obviously many benefits to high-speed communication, but unfortunately, our brains are not exactly designed for it. They are not designed to multitask. In fact, they are not capable of it at all. Studies have shown over and over again that what we call multitasking is the costly, rapid switching between tasks.
The first price we pay is metabolic. Daniel J. Levitin, a professor of psychology and behavioral neuroscience, reveals the physiological details of this process in his best-selling book, The Organized Mind. In short, constant attentional switching forces the brain to consume large amounts of oxygen-rich glucose, which is also needed to continue working. Depleting this fuel compromises our cognitive and physical performance and can lead to increased anxiety, impulsivity, and aggression.
Furthermore, most of the tasks we switch between require decision-making (Which evening this week can I set aside for dinner with a friend? Should I pick up the phone or not? Which email should I answer first?). Decision-making also burns a lot of brain fuel, and it does so regardless of the importance of the situation: small decisions consume just as much energy as large ones. So if we regularly overload our neural systems with small decisions, our brains become exhausted. As a result, we may make a terrible decision in an important situation because our brains are exhausted from the thousands of small choices we make throughout the day.