Mental Shrinkage

Image: Christopher Silas Neal

The late Clifford Nass, was the Stanford Professor who pioneered research into the study of the effects of multitasking and the broader implications of how humans interact with technology.  As the time we spend on interacting with our devices has skyrocketed over the last five years Dr. Nass’s work was particularly important to helping us recognize the dangers of our digital habits.  I myself have been an ardent “multi-tasker’ over the years – taking great pleasure in the seemingly endless array of technologies I could simultaneously interact with.  Oh, the joy, the comfort, and the warmth of all forms of visual and auditory stimulation simultaneously being accessed from the comfort of a desk or couch.  The powerful modern day human controlling the world with the melding of brain and technology.

Well, Dr. Nass and others have striven to jolt us out of our technology stupor. The NY Times wrote  that one of his most publicized research projects was a 2009 study on multitasking (Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers ).  “He and his colleagues presumed that people who frequently juggle computer, phone, or television screens, or just different applications would display some special skill at ignoring irrelevant information, or efficiently switching between tasks, or that they would prove to have a particularly orderly memory.”

The reality was not so rosy:

•  “We were absolutely shocked,” he said. “We lost all our bets.  It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking.  They’re terrible at ignoring irrelevant information; they’re terrible at keeping information in their head nicely and neatly organized; and they’re terrible at switching from one task to another”.
•  “One would think that if people were bad at multitasking, they would stop.  However, when we talk with the multitaskers, they seem to think they’re great at it and seem totally unfazed and totally able to do more and more and more.”
•  With children doing more multitasking and people asked to do more of it at work, he said “We worry that it may be creating people who are unable to think well and clearly”.

What Nass’s research showed was that we are losing our ability to focus, concentrate, and go deep into subject matter.  We are easily distracted.  Multitasking actually impairs performance, not improves it.  The implications for this are profound – our technology keeps getting more sophisticated, but in the process it may be reducing our ability to be thoughtful, contemplative, critical-thinking human beings.

Nass’ second point is interesting – why don’t multitaskers stop doing it because they are bad it?  Well, that’s because we don’t realize that we’re bad it.  One would have to be mindful and conscious to come to that conclusion – the opposite of multitasking.  The New Atlantis magazine in an excellent article in 2008 (The Myth of Multitasking) reported that the impact of multitasking is in fact worse than mere distraction – “In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, that found:

 Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.

The psychologist who led the study called this new “infomania” a serious threat to workplace productivity. One of the Harvard Business Review’s “Breakthrough Ideas” for 2007 was Linda Stone’s notion of “continuous partial attention,” which might be understood as a subspecies of multitasking: using mobile computing power and the Internet, we are “constantly scanning for opportunities and staying on top of contacts, events, and activities in an effort to miss nothing.”

“Continuous Partial Attention” – that phrase sort of sums it all up doesn’t it?  We are not fully present, and that lack of attention causes us to be less productive.  It often takes us longer to absorb material .  Have you noticed how you have to re-read something a number of times when you are in full multitask mode?

Multi-tasking, or task switching, also introduces a delay in returning to the task at hand.  Research studies over the years have shown that it takes anywhere from 18 to 24 minutes for a person to resume the level of focus they had before they were interrupted or diverted their attention.  Talk about productivity hit.

Yet, returning to my point in the opening paragraph – I actually liked multitasking and so do many others.  Why? A study at Ohio State University in 2012 tackled this issue.  They found:

•  The findings showed that multitasking often gave the students an emotional boost, even when it hurt their cognitive functions, such as studying.
• “There’s this myth among some people that multitasking makes them more productive,” said Zheng Wang, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.
• “But they seem to be misperceiving the positive feelings they get from multitasking. They are not being more productive – they just feel more emotionally satisfied from their work.”
• Take, for example, students who watched TV while reading a book. They reported feeling more emotionally satisfied than those who studied without watching TV, but also reported that they didn’t achieve their cognitive goals as well, Wang said.
• “They felt satisfied not because they were effective at studying, but because the addition of TV made the studying entertaining. The combination of the activities accounts for the good feelings obtained,” Wang said.

The old tastes great, but is not great for you story we keep experiencing over and over in our modern day lives…

So what should we do?

1. Ideally we would want to single task all the time as we would be truly mindful and fully experience every moment.  But at a minimum, when you are doing things that really matter, you need to focus on just one task.
2. Eliminate the distractions of multiple open apps and windows on your computer when working on critical items.  Go full screen and eliminate all distractions.
3. Try to focus in bursts of time. For example, block off one hour to an important task and don’t do anything else.  Afterwards, give yourself a break, and then come back and work on the next focused block.
4. One of the reasons why we multitask more than ever is that we can.  The devices that let us multitask are portable and always with us – smart phones, tablets, and laptops.  Even if we want to read and not be distracted, its tough because we are reading on our tablets! So at least keep the cell phone at bay, and when reading on a digital device, vow to read in a solid block of time without distracting yourself with email, web surfing, etc.
5. No problem with listening to Music when doing other things.  In a 2009 NPR interview, Dr. Nass stated “Music, or at least instrumental music, seems to be the one modality that doesn’t seem to lead to problems with multitasking.”  That said, try single tasking in silence from time to time – complete focus.  See how you feel afterwards – did you feel you retained more information, were more calm, more productive, were able think more clearly and deeply?
6. Be intentional with your approach to your day.  Map out the top 3-5 things you want to accomplish during the day and then plan out the time blocks where you will accomplish them.  This way you can minimize distractions and devote your full attention to your most important priorities.
7. One of the biggest multitasking pitfalls may actually be the non-stop internal chatter of our minds.  We are often thinking about un-related events, problems, worries when we are working on a task.  In order to alleviate this, practice active Mindfulness.  Notice when your attention has wandered off and bring it back into focus. You can perhaps even use a trigger word to repeat to yourself.  I use ‘Focus’.
8. Strengthen your ability to focus your thoughts by practicing meditation every day.

Ultimately, we need to accept that our modern day multitasking lifestyles are robbing us of the most precious asset we have – the full experience of the present moment – the only thing that truly exists.  Let’s get it back.

~Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com