In Alina Tugend’s article “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” the New York Times columnist shares with her readers her point of view on the concept of multitasking. From the 1990’s to today, technology has created a chaotic world where tasks are expected to be accomplished in a shorter time span, causing people to feel the urge to multitask. The columnist refutes that multitasking does not work by listing research from neuroscientists and psychologists; their findings correlated to an increase in stress, frustration, as well as pressure when one is attempting various tasks at once, arguing the effort to multitask is condemned an “attention deficit trait.” Tugend argues that with multitasking, the brain tries to focus on more than one …show more content…
In Alina Tugend’s “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um… Focus,” the columnist lists the possible cons from multitasking. As Tugend adversely states, “…we are required, or feel required to do more and more things in a shorter period of time.” (715) Rebutting Tugend’s point of view, multitasking has been recognized as one of the most refined ways to get ahead not only at work but at home as well. Simultaneously completing responsibilities has the potential to prevent procrastination, allows you to deal with distractions, and productivity …show more content…
Moving back and forth between different projects prevents stagnation, thus allowing a multitasker to deal with constant distractions. Chaos is an issue that can occur anywhere, at any time. Multitasking helps with coping with this problem by being able to accomplish numerous tasks at once because life does not stop happening regardless of how busy a schedule is. Whitbourne furthermore states that “Many neuroscientists propose that the mind operates in units or modules that carry out subroutines. Our frontal lobes may orchestrate the so-called executive functions of the mind that allocate resources to given tasks, but it's rare for our brains to operate with a singular focus.”(1) Reiterating that real life demands undertaking multiple daily
Gleick says in his article that by the time Michael Hartl “heads for the bathroom…each morning, he has already got his computer starting... And then, as he runs to breakfast, he…[dials] into the campus computer network, and then gets his web browser started so he can check the news while he eats. ‘I figure I save at least two or three minutes a day…” While Michael is trying to get his computer ready at the same time he is getting ready for the day, he has the potential to rush himself through his hygiene activities which could lead him to not fully completing them. As humans we always want the extra moments in our days to stretch to the maximum that they can, even if it means that we have to cut something else in our day short. We like to be able to say we did more because it gives us a boost in our ego for the day. Doing more multitasking in our days does not always mean we did do more. Switching back and forth between tasks could also take up more time than to stick to one task until it is fully done. When we multitask we have to continuously change the way our mind is thinking and what our body is doing. This could take more of a process to repeatedly get started rather than maintain a single thought on a topic and continuously let it
In the article, “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” Alina Tugend centralizes around the negative effects of multitasking. She shows that often with multitasking, people tend to lose focus, lack work quality, have an increase in stress, and in the end she gives a solution to all these problems. Tugend conveys her points by using understandable language, a clear division of subjects, and many reliable sources, making her article cogent.
Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to a large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study “Your Brain on Computers” reports that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, is claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. (Crovitz 353) As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distr...
In the chapter “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” from The New Brain, written by Richard Restak, Restak makes some very good points on his view of multitasking and modern technology. He argues that multitasking is very inefficient and that our modern technology is making our minds weaker. Multitasking and modern technology is causing people to care too much what other people think of them, to not be able to focus on one topic, and to not be able to think for themselves.
In the article,“Multitasking is actually kind of a problem for kids and adults” by Hayley Tsukayama the author went into detail about how parents and their children view their personal media habits. One of the ways that the parents and children viewed their media habits as was feeling the need to respond to texts and notifications immediately. “More than 1,200 parents and teens surveyed, 48 percent of parents and 72 percent of teens said they felt the need to respond to texts and notifications immediately, almost guaranteeing distractions throughout the day” (Tsukayama). This article can be connected to “The Epidemic of Media Multitasking While Learning” both of the articles discussed the different factors of media multitasking among individuals. The article from The Washington Post website gave great insight on multitasking and rather it is bad for students when it comes to learning. I believe that the issue being discussed is very relevant because if students are easily distracted by technology while in their learning environment it results in them not learning
Technology and our exposure to it are changing our lives; of this there is no doubt. The issue regarding what form that change will take and the effects of it on our physical and emotional health, however, are more contentious, and experts’ opinions on it run the gamut. In “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of our Era”, neurologist Dr. Richard Restak examines what effect technology has on our brains, and posits that technology, as well as the increasing demand on our brains to perform multiple tasks at once, is causing a decrease
Many would remark that multitasking is a skill that can be trained like all others. However, a lot of neuroscience has went into proving that multitasking is a myth altogether. The article “The Myth of Multitasking” is written by Nancy K. Napier for Psychology today is here to debunk the myth of the brain’s capability to multitask. The article states that the brain is incapable of doing two things at once. Instead, the way that we fool ourselves into thinking that we can multitask is how quickly our brain switches from one task to another. Our brains can’t perform tasks simultaneously as our focus is a narrow beam. So, to compensate for this, our brain switches between these two tasks very quickly, almost as if we are doing them at the same
Multitasking requires that a worker divides his/her time and energy on multiple tasks at the same time. As a result, the care and attention to detail is divided. The amount of focus that could be used to review one assignment is split. In an experiment, Patterson (2017) discovered that students who studied while participating in media multitasking took longer to complete tasks in their classes. This experiment addresses media multitasking in the case of students. While it is not a type of multitasking we normally consider, it does involve performing multiple tasks at one. Instead of putting all of their focus on their assignments, these students’ attention is on the assignment and on their social media. The results of the experiment prove that it when placed in scenarios where people are required to focus on multiple things, it takes more time to complete certain tasks. In this instance, media multitasking caused a decrease in performance. In another experiment, Paridon and Kaufmann (2010) made an observation when studying multitasking in the workplace, stating that people’s reaction time diminished when multiple tasks were completed at once. The believe that multitasking affects people’s performance has also been proven to be true in the workplace, as the speed of people’s production when down when required to complete multiple tasks. Performance can be determined by the speed in which a task is completed.
David Silverman provided four main reasons why multitasking can be a reliable source for doing many tasks at once. The first reason is multitasking can help a person collect pieces of information faster. Silverman used the example of him getting contact from a customer to make a slide, but wasn't available so his employee started on the slide. After reading his email, Silverman and his employee accomplish the slide within thirty minutes. This example shows how in a certain time a person can collect information quicker from doing another task. The second reason is multitasking can help a person from any distractions or interruptions from doing the tasks
sufficiently. They found that a person multitasking does not complete a task as well or any
Technology that has been made prevalent around us has been created to help us deal with these multiple tasks at once. Restak takes the stance in his article “People have always been required to do more than one thing at a time or think of more than one thing at a time. But even when engaged in what we now call multitasking, most people maintained a strong sense of unity: They remained fully grounded in terms of what they were doing. Today the sense of unity has been replaced, I believe, by the feelings of distraction and difficulty maintaining focus and attention.” What Restak is saying in this quote is that multitasking with technology causes the brain to lose concentration when it comes to focusing on a task at hand.
According to The Dangers of Multitasking, the downsides of multitasking outweigh its upsides (Davies 39). Multitasking students can miss many necessary information that they really need to pass tests and understand lessons when they multitask during the lectures, which causes them to get a low grade on their tests. “Many experienced multitaskers have experienced an unexpected thing when, for example, their e-mail service was disabled for a period of time. They discovered that they were actually more productive during that period of time” (Multitasking 758). That means that multitaskers are more productive when they concentrate on one task; so students will do better on tests and in school in general, if they quit or cut back on multitasking during classes. Moreover, “The human brain works more efficiently on a single task and for sustained rather than intermitted or alternating periods of time” (Multitasking 758). So, this does not mean...
Multitasking involves you working as efficiently as possible and doing multiple things at the same time. This is commonly used when someone is behind on something and does not have a lot of time. When I do this however I don't do it for that reason but instead I use this for me to get my work done early. Moving around tend to keep the focus where it matters and reduce the amount of time you spend giving information. You do not
What really is multitasking? There is a substantial amount of information on how the brain multitasks. And basically, it doesn’t. A person may see a teenage girl writing a text message, drinking coffee, and doing homework all at the same time, and think the girl is multitasking. People do not understand the true concept of what multitasking is. They are under the illusion they can do things simultaneously while they work, and think they are paying attention to everything around them, when they aren’t. What’s really going on is people’s brains are, they switching back and forth from task to task rather than doing it all at once. The brain is doing more than one task, but by ordering them and deciding which one to do at any one time. People will question of how others easily walk dow...
Multitasking has become second nature for most of the people in the digital world. People would like to think that doing multiple tasks at once would be beneficial, but in reality multitasking is an oxymoron. According to english.stackexchange.com, “the word multitasking became a buzz-word in PC operating systems, notably the earlier version of windows.” In other words, multitasking started with computers. A computer has the ability to process more than a million types of information in a matter of seconds. Although a computer is able to succeed in multitasking, the human mind cannot come close to processing that same amount of information, so essentially humans are incapable of multitasking. It’s actually kind of an unfair comparison. In its simplest form --walking