20 ms·

Multitasking hurts performance and may even damage the brain (2018)

491 points by tracyhenry 5y ago

djabatt 5y ago
I must be brain dead because I have been in multitasking mode for a decade with small months of hyper focus sprints. Sadly a modern life brings many opportunities. I know for sure the Internet has made my focus a challenge.....
diogenescynic 5y ago
Multitasking adds more stress and in my experience also leads to burnout a lot quicker. It also makes more errors which makes it counter-productive in a lot of cases.
5tefan 5y ago
So what to do now with that? It is the total opposite of "modern" work environments. Can't escape multitasking or can I?
gautamdivgi 5y ago
I'd vote to have no notifications (of any kind) from chat & messaging tools as the default. This too especially at work to reduce overload of multi-tasking. Even showing the number of messages on an icon in the taskbar is very distracting.
- etxm 5y ago
  I got on this train when I got my first iPhone. I turned off every notification except the ringer (no one calls me except free cruise spam, so maybe I should silence that). At work, I disable all Slack messages and check Slack in my slack time. Email gets checked at 9AM and 4:30P. It’s glorious.
  - periheli0n 5y ago
    Sounds glorious indeed! But what do you do when you need to send an email at 11:30? Do you send without looking? Or do you just wait until the next send window? I'm genuinely interested in this because by far the most time-intensive distractor in my job is answering email. When I look at email at 9am I am usually busy replying until 10 at least. Then I get some work done which I need to send off by email at 11:30, seeing that I have 20 new emails of which 10 are somewhat relevant and 1 needs a reply.
    - etxm 5y ago
      I try to avoid the trap of the inbox if possible. If something is an emergency I’ll go log in, otherwise I keep a Apple Note with a checklist that I can add quick little blurbs to remind me of emails I need to write later.
  - deleted 5y ago
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- weird-eye-issue 5y ago
  The downside of no notifications is that you must manually check for changes
refactor_master 5y ago
Again and again, people just refuse to accept that cognitive performance has very clear limits, and that multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours are, at best, a total waste of time. And exponentially so, the more “focus-intensive” the work is. Why do we have this bias? Is it deeply wired in some sort of survival instinct?
- ratherbefuddled 5y ago
  > multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours From personal experience I think these are two very different things. Context switching seems to me to have a cost directly proportional to the complexity of the task. If it takes me 10 minutes to get the mental model of something sorted and then I'm interrupted I'll lose most of that 10 minutes. I can fire off emails requiring little thought one after the other with little cost. I find that working long hours/without breaks is completely trainable. I can do it productively for long lengths of time and the longer I do it the easier it gets. It's very tiring, and requires solid rest in between but it can be done and it can be very productive. The intersection of the two is impossible for me. Interruptions seem to accelerate the slowly building fatigue markedly. It's as though almost all the effort goes into getting the mental model sorted and staying there is relatively cheap.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    > I can fire off emails requiring little thought one after the other with little cost. So can everyone else, which results in the state of the average modern inbox.
    - ratherbefuddled 5y ago
      Yes, it's a sorry state of affairs. I'd escaped that sort of thing until recently when we started working with a client who behaves as though everybody lives in their inbox and sees emails seconds after they're sent. Explaining to them that I look maybe twice a day at emails was interesting. Slack is my problem. I'm trying to train myself to be disciplined but too many people treat it as synchronous.
TameAntelope 5y ago
Maybe I'm just refusing to let go of a useful tool, but how many tasks do I really need to do at an above-8-yr-old level? It could be perfectly acceptable to apply 15 fewer IQ points across the board to my problems if I can get more of those problems solved in a fixed amount of time.
m1117 5y ago
It's better to single task on a multi-task assignment than multi-task on a single-task assignment.
saagarjha 5y ago
> So the next time you're writing your boss an email during a meeting, remember that your cognitive capacity is being diminished to the point that you might as well let an 8-year-old write it for you. Yeah, no. Stick to the paper and stop trying to sensationalize it, please.
- curiousllama 5y ago
  Joke's on them I never focused in on the meeting
andrewstuart 5y ago
My primary school age son, and anecdotally, lots of other kids of similar age, relentlessly multitask in ways that hurts my brain just to think about. He literally is playing a game, watching a YouTube video in another screen, and talking to friends at the same time, and in the most extreme case, is even listening to an audiobook or podcast as well. Asking kids about it, they all say that's just what they do and look at us oldies like we are from the 20th century or something.
- wvenable 5y ago
  I've noticed the exact same thing. My son will constantly be doing multiple things at once -- watch a youtube video while playing a game, etc. Although when I was a kid a literally did everything with the TV on in the background.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    And I did college physics homework with the tape deck running. (I'd turn it off when I really needed to focus, though...)
    - Moru 5y ago
      I would turn the stereo on so I could focus for homework. Always needed something in the background. I'm 47. 20 years ago I had no problem having three to five conversations running in private chats mediating between guild members, keeping notes about them so I could remember for next session and still grinding XP in demanding highlevel areas of an MMORPG. Now? All quiet and maybe I can concentrate enough to finish one task at a time. When I visit people with TV on in the background I have a very hard time to talk to anyone.
- periheli0n 5y ago
  It would be interesting to see how much of all that information is actually retained. I bet kids are much better at filtering out background noise than grown-ups are.
- 5y ago
grouphugs 5y ago
ahh, yes, the fickle balance between retaining and oligarchy and not letting it work you too hard well, that's just not gonna work is it
deleted 5y ago
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TameAntelope 5y ago
> 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. Does anyone know which study this is?
- zeristor 5y ago
  University of London just sounds a bit wonky, a reputable UoL college such as: UCL, King’s QMW, SoAS, LSE, or Birkbeck would be recognisable by name. Imperial was part of UoL until 2007.
danboarder 5y ago
Multitasking gets a bad rap but I would suggest that not everything we call "multitasking" disrupts focus. For example, many tasks become background processes and some provide rhythm for improved focus. In my experience, for example, listening to a Lex Fridman podcast while doing Photoshop design works great together and I think is better when done together than not, perhaps using different parts of the brain. Likewise, listening to music while coding are complementary tasks for me. So some tasks multitask together with others fine and improve focus, while others interrupt or disrupt focus, in my experience.
- slver 5y ago
  Yup. The key is to find combinations of activities that don't conflict with each other. I also can work and breathe at the same time (neat trick). /s
  - Rimpinths 5y ago
    Right. I love to listen to music while coding, but I couldn't listen to a podcast. I've tried, but I can't write words and listen to words at the same time. But music is no problem.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      I can only listen to instrumental music, anything with lyrics kills my productivity.
- redisman 5y ago
  There does seem to be some more bandwidth combining “art” and “science”. Trying to listen to any talking while programming is almost impossible but if I’m drawing or sculpting or anything like that then it’s more complementary
LZ_Khan 5y ago
Genuine question then.. how are we supposed to function properly as software engineers, especially in jobs with long feedback loops? The nature of my job is that I'm almost more of a train conductor than a software engineer. I configure a job, run it, then wait for 10-30 minutes to get the results. I do this for maybe 5 jobs at a time, on 5 different projects. Naturally I feel a lot of stress and cognitive burden while doing this but I figured it's part of the job. Is this normal for backend, distributed-computing heavy jobs? Is there a better strategy I can adopt? Should I try to get a new role with a shorter compile-test feedback loop?
- deleted 5y ago
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- jvidalv 5y ago
  Get a frontend job, instant compile time haha
  - OhSoHumble 5y ago
    Yeah, but the loss of sanity usually cancels out the productivity gains.
  - pyridines 5y ago
    Not necessarily, our frontend repo takes almost as long as the backend to compile. I'm hoping we switch to esbuild at some point.
    - nanagojo 5y ago
      Can't wait till it is feature complete and CRA and Nextjs embrace it.
- curiousllama 5y ago
  Multitasking in this context means doing multiple things concurrently, not consecutively. It may be hard to launch a job, switch over to configure another one, switch back when you get the results from the first, finish launching the second, reconfigure & relaunch the first, and then move on to the third while 1 & 2 are running etc etc etc... but it's not strictly multitasking, it's just ocntext switching. Also hard, also expensive, just different.
josefresco 5y ago
My wife (like many wives) multi-tasks to the extreme. Coordinating our household, and running a business means she always has about 100 things in her brain at once. Always on her phone, always planning, making lists, researching, ordering. It's certainly common, and a wonder to witness however I worry about the effects on her brain, as she has trouble sometimes vocalizing her thoughts. She often forgets someone's name, or something's name and it takes her a minute to slow down and find the words. It's happening more and more, and concerns her. I wonder if it's a byproduct of just age or years of multi-tasking and "mind juggling" so many things.
- gobins 5y ago
  I wonder if it is a biological thing. My wife excels at multitasking but I can barely do two things at a time. I did notice the delayed speech with my wife as well.
  - SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
    I'd hope not as I'm good at it, but my wife is awful at it. She pauses the TV to read a text message.
    - VRay 5y ago
      haha, it's the same deal for me and my wife I'll gladly do 2-3 things at once all day, but she has to pause the TV to answer a question or read a text message I don't think I'm as good at multitasking as lot of people in this thread, though.. I can multitask while programming and feel like I'm doing a great job, but then in retrospect it's clear that my output was maybe 20% of what it would've been if I'd been fully focused I found that out in college, homework assignments would take 30 minutes at my desk or multiple hours in front of the TV I think I need to get better about silencing Slack and keeping the web browser closed at work, come to think of it.. It's dang frustrating having to wait 2+ minutes for something to compile and run though..
- periheli0n 5y ago
  I recognize those symptoms. Happens to me too when stress levels have been constantly elevated for a while. Usually that's also when stupid errors start creeping into what I do. I think it might be an early sign of burnout.
mapcars 5y ago
This is not true, there are yogis who can do dozens and even hundreds things at the same time. These researchers study people who never did any work on their mind and make statements about whole humanity.
- leoh 5y ago
  I have never heard of this, source?
  - mapcars 5y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzlIfzj6xfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzlIfzj6xfo
- Jiocus 5y ago
  Are you telling me these people don't need Kubernetes engineering in their operations and still deliver value to their clients?
  - mapcars 5y ago
    Well, even in my company we don't have Kubernetes. I'm not a devops so can't elaborate more on this one :)
slver 5y ago
Previous studies: - "Women 'better at multitasking' than men, study finds" https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24645100 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24645100 This study: - "Multitasking Lowers IQ" - "Successful People Don't Multitask" - "While more research is needed to determine if multitasking is physically damaging the brain (versus existing brain damage that predisposes people to multitask), it's clear that multitasking has negative effects." I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
- tzs 5y ago
  > "Women 'better at multitasking' than men, study finds" They tested this on Mythbusters and got the same result [1]. [1] https://mythresults.com/battle-of-the-sexes-round-2 https://mythresults.com/battle-of-the-sexes-round-2
- booleandilemma 5y ago
  I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You can do both but not at the same time.
agumonkey 5y ago
personal anecdote but after trying too hard and feeling actual physical "pain" I came to the conclusion that learning needs a threshold of closure (which feels good), a coarse level conclusion about what was just processed. Piling up unconclusive signals on top of each other results in wounds it seems.
periheli0n 5y ago
From a computer science perspective, context switching is hugely expensive in humans, and that's why they are not good at multitasking. Strictly speaking, even computers don't execute multiple tasks in parallel, at least not on the same core. Even with hyperthreading, each step in the pipeline can only work on one datum at a time. Computation is always serialised, and any context switching comes at a cost. It's just that in computers this cost doesn't matter so much, and/or it's outweighed by the benefits of weaving tasks into each other. Nevertheless, Multitasking is a myth, technically.
sys_64738 5y ago
People don’t multitask so much as task switch.
vladmk 5y ago
Read this while multitasking too smh gotta stop
Impassionata 5y ago
If you constrain 'performance' to things which can be easily measured and then test how multitasking affects those measurements, you can come to some broad conclusions that are also useless.
goatcode 5y ago
I wonder what this says about pair programming, given that writing code and communicating are pretty different tasks, according to imaging: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-brain-code-decipher-neural-mechanics.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-brain-code-decipher-n...
- cma 5y ago
  Or "talk me through it as you do it" whiteboard interviewing
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
calderarrow 5y ago
Somewhat of a personal tangent, but I exclusively use 1 screen, and rarely split windows or have more than 1 application open when working. When I need to bounce between code/browser, documentation/code, or email/HN, I use the alt/command-tab functionality. I find it slower having to switch between viewing different screens or moving my head, yet I'm the only one in my friend group who does this -- everyone else seems to prefer dual monitors. I'm curious if HN people find that dual monitors feel like more of a distraction, and if it's at all related to multitasking.
- Graffur 5y ago
  It's not so much about number of monitors but screen estate.
- buwka 5y ago
  I definitely find dual monitors or more for splitting code, documentation, or other relevant project information to be similar to having multiple papers lying across my desk. I don’t want to stack the pages on top of one another but instead I prefer to lie them all on one large desk. Usually I’m only working on one page but need other references. If another paper truly is important than I can use Spectacle to quickly reorganize. Having email, slack, discord, or HN open is an absolute no go. Nothing more distracting than focusing on a project and seeing new emails or messages stream in. I try to limit those to a separate laptop or tablet at all times.
- webdev23 5y ago
  I’m just like you. In the afternoons, I switch from my monitor to just my laptop. I sometimes prefer a smaller screen so I experience less eyestrain
Graffur 5y ago
Can I show this to my boss..? Jokes aside, I literally have felt the effects of multitasking in work. My brain stopped working effectively. In addition, I lost all desire to work. I wish there wasn't a book advertised at the bottom of this article. I feel like I can't share it.
238475235243 5y ago
There are people who have had a cognitive impairment they've worked with and they're are people who haven't. If you have a brain injury, head trauma, stroke, cognitive migraine.... You're aware of the space you vacate. You can feel it missing and its "a thing". For everyone else, you just convince yourself you're just as effective as you were. You think multitasking works or driving after two beers is ok. You're not aware of what is outside of your constrained cognition.
- treeman79 5y ago
  Been all of these. Used to multi task like crazy when younger. Turned out it was a coping mechanism for severe ADHD. Then had a few years of brain injuries. I would see a problem. Say “reverse a string”, and think oh that’s trivial. A week later I would finally finish. I “knew” how to solve the problem, but as you described something was missing. Eventually recovered, plus got on adhd medication. Now I don’t multitask much. Only if I skip medication. I still can but it’s harder unless I’m off medication. In general I’m much more productive. But grander problems are a little harder as I’m not thinking too much beyond the moment.
  - bob_theslob646 5y ago
    Have there been any long term studies on ADHD medication ?
aussieguy1234 5y ago
Remember, this doesn't mean you can't get multiple things done. Just do them one at a time wherever possible. You'll actually get all the things you need to do done faster
lostmsu 5y ago
This is total crap. TL;DR; 1. When doing multiple things at once performance is reduced in each of those things (thank you capt. Obvious). 2. Doing multiple things at once in a specific setting correlates with reduced activity in some brain areas. Casuality not demonstrated either way. No demonstrated relationship between "brain damage" and lower activity, so the claim in the title is at least two logical errors away from the raw data. 3. Buy this new book about EQ (which is pseudoscientific crap on its own).
- dentalperson 5y ago
  Yes, I'm surprised more HN folk don't call out #1. To be clear, the author is purporting that lower performance on an IQ test when doing another task means multitasking implies that a lower IQ. This seems crazy to me, but maybe I've been multitasking too much.
throwawaygimp 5y ago
Warning - I read some early research about this topic, something I was interested in at the time, around 15 years ago. Since then I've been actively trying to avoid multitasking as much as possible over the last decade or so. It did, I believe, have one unforeseen side-effect: I now struggle to multitask in relatively simple situations where it's necessary. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older (42), but I seem to struggle with it much more than any of my peers. Still, I wouldn't change anything. I believe I'm as or more productive per unit of time than anyone I've worked with. Edit - one more side effect: I used to regularly work 12+ hour days. Now I'm _completely_ spent after 7-8 hours, as those hours are so intense.
acituan 5y ago
Yet multitasking is still being branded as something of a higher cognitive functioning. Byung-Chul Han in The Burnout Society claims that it is the opposite: > “The attitude toward time and environment known as “multitasking’ does not represent civilisational progress. Human beings in the late-modern society of work and information are not the only ones capable of multitasking. Rather, such an aptitude amounts to regression. Multitasking is commonplace among wild animals. It is an attentive technique indispensable for survival in the wilderness. > An animal busy with eating must also attend to other tasks. For example, it must hold rivals away from its prey. It must constantly be on the lookout, lest it be eaten while eating. At the same time, it must guard its young and keep an eye on its sexual partner. In the wild, the animal is forced to divide its attention between various activities. That is why animals are incapable of contemplative immersion—either they are eating or they are copulating.” > ... > We owe the cultural achievements of humanity—which include philosophy—to deep, contemplative attention.”
- trhway 5y ago
  >multitasking is still being branded as something of a higher cognitive functioning. not surprisingly given that it is branded that way by the "multitaskers". I mean you wouldn't find many deep contemplative thinkers at the mid- or top-level of corporations or even of the whole society. These days the ability to deep contemplative thinking is more like a handicap relegating you into the rank-and-file.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    I disagree. Multitasking is starting to be seen as what it actually is. If you're managing well, you'll at the very least be familiar with the doubt around humans being capable of multitasking effectively.
abc_lisper 5y ago
Multitasking is easier if the task you are switching to is well understood. So, one way of knowing if people understand something well is, if they can jump in and out of it without much effort
hintymad 5y ago
Does it depend on the definition of multi-tasking? We take multiple courses in colleges, and we switch context all the time. I often worked on an assignment or reviewed coursework between two classes. I usually took no fewer than 5 classes in a semester, and a class usually had 4 to 6 assignments, 2 to 3 midterms, and a final. So we often had multiple assignments or tests due at the same day, which means we had to work on multiple tasks in a day too. Similarly, we became more multi-tasked when we grew more senior. A design review now, a product planning meeting in the next hour, followed by an 1-on-1 to discuss a particular issue, and then a task to write a white paper. Again, multi tasking in my eyes. One does carve out some quite time for deep think, but the majority of the time will be broken into back-to-back meetings for multiple tasks.
- onethought 5y ago
  I think the point is, it is suboptimal. You’d get better results if you minimised the contextual splits for natural moments of completion rather than unnatural moments of interrupt. This holds true in computing theory, feeding 10 things to a single core in sequence is more efficient than feeding 10 things at once and having the CPU handle interrupts.
SquibblesRedux 5y ago
The problem may not be task switching, but rather an intentional suppression of inhibitory control. Another interesting perspective on task-switching (or set-shifting): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_switching_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_switching_(psychology) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354620/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354620/ (The Attentional Set Shifting Task: A Measure of Cognitive Flexibility in Mice)
29athrowaway 5y ago
> "That is why animals are incapable of contemplative immersion—either they are eating or they are copulating." I think there are many humans that fit into this description.
- taneq 5y ago
  Humans ⊂ Animals, after all.
- greshario 5y ago
  This guy has clearly never looked at an actual animal, like a dog dozing in the sun or a dolphin surfing along a wave for fun.
  - mdgrech23 5y ago
    dogs aren't wild animals though - their existence really only exists b/c we allow it.
    - steve_adams_86 5y ago
      Wild, previously domesticated dogs are a thing. Some strays out there would continue to survive without humans around, too.
  - bonoboTP 5y ago
    Right. Many predators only eat occasionally and then lie around doing nothing for days.
    - 29athrowaway 5y ago
      The presence of a predator scares the prey. And that is useful in many ways. It helps vegetation regenerate, among other things.
- ackbar03 5y ago
  Objectively speaking there's nothing necessarily wrong with that? If anything could be something we aspire to
not2b 5y ago
For a developer, I think multitasking between two tasks (a higher priority task and a lower priority task that can be worked on while the higher priority task is blocked or waiting or otherwise stuck) is manageable and can work well. Beyond two the task switching cost gets too high in a hurry. It's also not good if management/customers are insisting that both tasks are very high priority, it's too stressful to juggle them then.
- Quekid5 5y ago
  I'm not sure that's multitasking per se. That's just prioritizing or triage. You're still working on a single thing at a time.
  - not2b 5y ago
    But that's exactly what a multitasking OS does. When the current task is waiting on I/O, it switches to the other task. It executes one at a time (at least, once per core).
    - lanstin 5y ago
      There's finishing one thing and letting the context go, and then asking "what is the next most urgent task" and then doing that task with single-pointed attention. There is also trying to mull over some software problem while a conference call where people are planning something that matters to you and you keep one ear out for if you are called out or a special topic to you is called out. The first is not harmful but the second certainly feels bad. There's also getting into the next most urgent task and getting deep into it and being free to just ignore all notifications for however long vs. people expecting to ping you on slack and get a real time answer or invite you to a call with 10 minutes notice and expecting you to be there. Again, the second is stressful and injurious to good quality work.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    No one really multitasks, it's all task switching.
  - 5y ago
mac-chaffee 5y ago
Direct links to the studies cited: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-resear... http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/uos-bsr092314.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/uos-bsr092314...
jasonjei 5y ago
No wonder we have a hard-time writing multi-threaded code ;)
roonyh 5y ago
What exactly is multitasking? I am a software developer. I listen to music while I work. Is that multitasking? If I pick up a different issue to work on while I wait for code review on another, is that multitasking?
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
The actual test, in any case: > In each of their tests, the researchers split their subjects into two groups: those who regularly do a lot of media multitasking and those who don't. > In one experiment, the groups were shown sets of two red rectangles alone or surrounded by two, four or six blue rectangles. Each configuration was flashed twice, and the participants had to determine whether the two red rectangles in the second frame were in a different position than in the first frame. > They were told to ignore the blue rectangles, and the low multitaskers had no problem doing that. But the high multitaskers were constantly distracted by the irrelevant blue images. Their performance was horrible. > Because the high multitaskers showed they couldn't ignore things, the researchers figured they were better at storing and organizing information. Maybe they had better memories. > The second test proved that theory wrong. After being shown sequences of alphabetical letters, the high multitaskers did a lousy job at remembering when a letter was making a repeat appearance. > "The low multitaskers did great," Ophir said. "The high multitaskers were doing worse and worse the further they went along because they kept seeing more letters and had difficulty keeping them sorted in their brains." So the usual soft science dreck of investigating vague, ill-defined umbrella terms such as “multitasking” by investigating a highly constructed, specific scenario that never occurs in real life that falls under it, and then extrapolating this result to all of real life, not to mention inferring causation from correlation. Logic of the form of “Eating is bad, because we fed our test subjects objects human beings normally never eat, and we concluded it was very averse to their health to eat marbles, shards of glass, and mercury.”
SMAAART 5y ago
People misunderstand what multitasking is. If you're downloading a huge file that takes 1 hour, don't just stand there watching, put a timer on, and go work on a different task. If you're copying a huge document, don't just stand there, put a timer on and go d another task. Learning to recognize processes that can be run in parallel is key, but it doesn't mean to do 2 things at ones; anything that requires some level of thinking can only be done single-tasking.
TeeMassive 5y ago
I don't multitask, I just schedule scripts and other automated tasks in parallel. I've never seen someone be more productive while doing more than one things at once.
shakaijin 5y ago
I have been noticing the impact of excessive multitasking on myself lately, and I am now actively trying to avoid it. At first i thought that multitasking would increase my overall efficiency by filling in gaps of downtime in certain tasks, but it soon turned me into a person incapable of focusing on anything deeply. One day, I noticed that I am unable to read a book the same way i did as a child (cover to cover in one sitting for example), and it kind of shocked me. I now have a rule that i do one thing only, and start other tasks only when the previous task has been finished. This applies to both productive work (learning, programming etc.) and entertainment (YouTube, books etc.). I think that it is starting to help, but I feel like it will take time to undo the damage of years of bad multitasking.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Have you noticed that your inability to just “read a book” differs by genre? I suffer from that with pretty much any fiction, but can still lose afternoons reading a well-written history or scientific explainer.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Not op, but yes. It is not just difference in genre. The books that appeared to me as awesome when I was younger are completely uninteresting now. I try to read and switch into twitter within three pages. But, once in a while I run into completely different book and cant stop reading it. Books that I would find boring back then I think. Like you, I read way more well-written history now, but there is also occasional fiction. I think that the big difference is that once you are well into adulthood, it is much harder to come across book recommendation that suits you. The market is dominated by youth needs I guess.
    - rolandog 5y ago
      Or, have we become boring? I've noticed I have outgrown some things I loved as a young adult, like most videogames; though I don't know if it's just me being anti-commercial stuff, trying to avoid becoming a pay-to-win customer, and more of a buy-once customer.
Aerroon 5y ago
>While more research is needed to determine if multitasking is physically damaging the brain (versus existing brain damage that predisposes people to multitask), it's clear that multitasking has negative effects. The anterior cingulate cortex is involved in attention management and impulsivity.[0] This has been known for quite some time. It has even been observed that children with ADHD have thinning in (some parts of) the anterior cingulate cortex.[1] It seems like quite a stretch to exclaim that multitasking itself causes that. It's obviously not impossible, but seems implausible - at least implausible enough to not make it a separate paragraph in a short article. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC53241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC53241/ [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23713508/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23713508/
- bob_theslob646 5y ago
  What concrete evidence would you like to see?
m3kw9 5y ago
Maybe you are already cognitive impaired which is why you tend towards multitasking, because your brain is saying focusing too long hurts it. It’s a subconscious move.
holri 5y ago
I wonder if playing polyphonic music has the same effects. Have pianists a lower IQ than trumpet players?
- ex3xu 5y ago
  My intuition would be that the kind of multitasking that can cause damage refers to trying to do multiple tasks that require a certain threshhold of focused attention and executive function, whereas musical training allows for the encoding of muscle memory to a level that doesn't really require executive function. I'd be curious to see if that intuition holds up in practice, though I have my doubts about whether IQ or EQ would necessarily be the right quantitative metric.
  - holri 5y ago
    Playing polyphonic music like Bach Fugues requires an enormous amount of focused attention and executive function. Relying on muscle memory alone does not work at all for me and all musicians I know that play polyphonic Bach music.
    - ex3xu 5y ago
      I think as musical training increases, the amount of energy required for specific kinds of bimanual motor coordination tasks decreases, see Haslinger, 2004 [0]. Regardless, looking at the literature, logitudinal studies seem to indicate that playing polyphonic music seems to improve brain plasticity rather than cause damage. Maybe the damage is more related to the context switching aspect of multitasking. [0]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hbm.20028 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hbm.20028
      - holri 5y ago
        In my personal experience playing polyphonic music is extremely fast context switching. That is, you can not sing two melodies at the same time, but you can switch very fast between them if you sing in your head mentally. That enables polyphonic piano playing / hearing.
richardoey 5y ago
I agree with him
usgroup 5y ago
"So the next time you're writing your boss an email during a meeting, remember that your cognitive capacity is being diminished to the point that you might as well let an 8-year-old write it for you." Another fine piece of science journalism. Pass.
georgewsinger 5y ago
There's something fishy about the "multitasking [and long working hours] is bad" fad of the past 10 years. If I had to guess, it's that these studies aren't sensitive to the outliers. Imagine telling e.g. Elon Musk "multitasking and long hours are bad for your productivity". I've been keeping very detailed data on my personal productivity for years, while taking all of the consensus wisdom ("long hours = bad", "multitasking = bad") to heart. What I've instead found is that long hours (literal 14+ hour days) makes me more consistently productive. Multitasking also has a strong synergistic component to it that I suspect doesn't show up in these narrow studies.* If multitasking across different projects leads to insights that shave years off of your respective project plans, but otherwise makes you slower locally, it's still more than worth it. Again using Elon as an example: Tesla and SpaceX have been made mutually stronger by insights being cross applied the two enterprises. * To be fair I'm speaking more of multitasking at the project level, not at the minute-to-minute level.
- welterde 5y ago
  Curious by which metric you are measuring productivity. Also wouldn't it make quite a difference on what time scale you are multi-tasking? If it's on the time scale of days between context switches or hours/minutes.
- filmfact 5y ago
  But by focusing the on just one - SpaceX might be on Mars, and Tesla might have a real self-driving car. Unfortunately it’s difficult to test that hypothesis. And it’s survivor bias to pick Elon Musk.
- hungryforcodes 5y ago
  Multitasking and doing many things in a long shift are not synonymous if those things are not interrupted. The damage of multitasking is the interruption and the consequent context switch. Working 12-14 hours a day on a couple of things is more in line with deep work, which is actually very productive for alot of people.
- kqr 5y ago
  Maybe humans need a little bit of everything? Short working hours interspersed with a few longer days, focusing on some days, and intense multitasking and coordination on others? So if you're life currently involves only long days filled with multitasking (probably very common in some walks of life) the solution involves shorter days and more focused time, whereas for others it might be the other way around. Whatever the truth is, I highly doubt humans are optimised specifically for exactly eight (or six) hours of focused work every day. I suspect we are helped by some variation, including the occasional 14 hour multitasking day.
newgradhire 5y ago
This has been a long time struggle for me and I’ve noticed it’s deteriorating effects especially with quarantine. I’ve been getting some reminders from here and deep work which has helped me immensely
mesaframe 5y ago
I have been aware of this since years how. Now I wonder if I subconsciously do multi tasking. Checking emails while listening to sing and simultaneously coding. Is this multi tasking or multiplexing?
hyperpallium2 5y ago
The Top Idea in Your Mind http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html
Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago
In other words, people used to do multiple tasks at once are bad at doing one task at once. An utterly ridiculous concern.
arichard123 5y ago
How do I know when I am multitasking? If I am cooking a meal, and that meal has several items on the go at once, am I multitasking? What if I have a complicated coding problem with multiple requirements which I have to consider, perhaps with political implications, so that I'm switching my thinking from a technical viewpoint, to a user experience viewpoint, to a "what will the leadership think" viewpoint? Is that multitasking?
- toopok4k3 5y ago
  Is the meal you are cooking a new recipe to you? You gotta plan and do things slower don't you? If it's something you know how to do, you don't really use brainpower on the serialization of when to do what, but experience. Good and fast cooking is all about serializing tasks, not doing multiple things at the same time. My breakfast routines are routines, If I start to mix up my routine, egg, bread and coffee timings are all screwed up. I overcook the egg, coffee is late. I have noticed timing and serializing tasks is everything when cooking anything. I think this is where the french(?) mise en place comes from, prepare every ingredient before hand, so when you have multiple stoves going on, ingredients are ready and you can focus on time critical stuff.
- twh270 5y ago
  For me, it's when I am consciously paying attention to more than one thing either "at the same time" (watching YouTube while cooking) or in rapid succession (run unit tests in the IDE, check email, look at story in JIRA, look at the weather on my phone, go back to the IDE to fix a failing test, ...). I was in this mode for years, racing around on overdrive, and I've been slowly learning to do One. Thing. At. A. Time. again. It's been hard because the habit is so ingrained. And probably also because it 'feels' like I'm less productive.
  - mastercoder82 5y ago
    Paying attention to more than one thing "at the same time" - is not humanly possible. So when you are simultaneously doing two tasks that demand attention, what you are actually doing is rapid context switching. The thing to understand is that - “attention has inertia”. Context switching has two implications: 1. It drains your energy - You have limited energy available every day. If you spend most of your energy in context switching, very less is available for actual work. And if you over-work, you cause real physical damage to yourself. 2. You can’t do any deep work - Deep work requires attention on a single thing for a sustained period of time. The idea is to work with your attention - not against it. The best way to do that is to reduce context switching and eliminate attention residue. Here is how: 1. Short-duration tasks - When you pick a task, finish it completely before moving on to the next one. Have distraction-free slots for work and batch similar tasks together. 2. Long-duration tasks - Pause-and-resume approach. When you pause a task, take a mental dump of its current state. This helps in two ways - first, your attention will not linger when you move to the next task and second, it will be easier to pick up when you resume that task.
nathias 5y ago
Focus is a mental habit connected to reading habits which are mostly just habits of eye movements. If you train your focus by reading long books or similar activity you will get it back, dark patterns are brain/mind damage.
GuB-42 5y ago
Not convinced by this article. It looks like the author tries to make a point, cherry picking articles that fit his view. First, there is no causal relationship, something he mentions "more research is needed to determine if multitasking is physically damaging the brain (versus existing brain damage that predisposes people to multitask)", but dismisses it right after "it's clear that multitasking has negative effects". It is also interesting how he went from "smaller density" to "damage", which implies some kind of destruction rather than adaptation. Then there is all that part about EQ, which mixes bad behavior (not paying attention), with other forms of multitasking like having plenty of stuff open on your computer. I mean, I can monotask during a meeting by not paying attention at all. Then it connects it to the "brain damage" study by saying that some of EQ-related parts of the brain are also related to multitasking, without showing the whole picture. The IQ and performance related part is more convincing, but also isn't really tied to the "brain damage" part. It is also a bit confusing as evidenced by a commenter asking "what is multitasking". That IQ drops when you are doing two things at once is kind of obvious, but it is nice to have a study to back it up. The question is "is it worth it"? And now comes what I think is the only insightful part: media multitasking, basically having more than one thing on your screen(s) makes it harder to switch tasks properly.
temporallobe 5y ago
Software developers are often expected to multitask, a lot, especially now in this new age of agile. This takes the form as multiple meetings per day, email saturation, multiple IM platforms, phone calls, the expectation to know and do everything as a “full stack” developer, context switching, reporting metrics, etc. If you work in multiple projects, all that overhead is just multiplied. This the current reality and I don’t see it changing any time soon because we designed this tyrannical system by which we now live.
arisAlexis 5y ago
I find it strange in an evolutionary way. We had too many "discoveries" in the field of neuroscience and psychology only to be reverse so I wouldn't trust the findings too much.

491 points by tracyhenry 5y ago

I must be brain dead because I have been in multitasking mode for a decade with small months of hyper focus sprints. Sadly a modern life brings many opportunities. I know for sure the Internet has made my focus a challenge.....

diogenescynic 5y ago

Multitasking adds more stress and in my experience also leads to burnout a lot quicker. It also makes more errors which makes it counter-productive in a lot of cases.

5tefan 5y ago

So what to do now with that? It is the total opposite of "modern" work environments. Can't escape multitasking or can I?

gautamdivgi 5y ago

I'd vote to have no notifications (of any kind) from chat & messaging tools as the default. This too especially at work to reduce overload of multi-tasking. Even showing the number of messages on an icon in the taskbar is very distracting.

etxm 5y ago
I got on this train when I got my first iPhone. I turned off every notification except the ringer (no one calls me except free cruise spam, so maybe I should silence that). At work, I disable all Slack messages and check Slack in my slack time. Email gets checked at 9AM and 4:30P. It’s glorious.
- periheli0n 5y ago
  Sounds glorious indeed! But what do you do when you need to send an email at 11:30? Do you send without looking? Or do you just wait until the next send window? I'm genuinely interested in this because by far the most time-intensive distractor in my job is answering email. When I look at email at 9am I am usually busy replying until 10 at least. Then I get some work done which I need to send off by email at 11:30, seeing that I have 20 new emails of which 10 are somewhat relevant and 1 needs a reply.
  - etxm 5y ago
    I try to avoid the trap of the inbox if possible. If something is an emergency I’ll go log in, otherwise I keep a Apple Note with a checklist that I can add quick little blurbs to remind me of emails I need to write later.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
weird-eye-issue 5y ago
The downside of no notifications is that you must manually check for changes

refactor_master 5y ago

Again and again, people just refuse to accept that cognitive performance has very clear limits, and that multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours are, at best, a total waste of time. And exponentially so, the more “focus-intensive” the work is. Why do we have this bias? Is it deeply wired in some sort of survival instinct?

ratherbefuddled 5y ago
> multitasking, skipped breaks and long hours From personal experience I think these are two very different things. Context switching seems to me to have a cost directly proportional to the complexity of the task. If it takes me 10 minutes to get the mental model of something sorted and then I'm interrupted I'll lose most of that 10 minutes. I can fire off emails requiring little thought one after the other with little cost. I find that working long hours/without breaks is completely trainable. I can do it productively for long lengths of time and the longer I do it the easier it gets. It's very tiring, and requires solid rest in between but it can be done and it can be very productive. The intersection of the two is impossible for me. Interruptions seem to accelerate the slowly building fatigue markedly. It's as though almost all the effort goes into getting the mental model sorted and staying there is relatively cheap.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  > I can fire off emails requiring little thought one after the other with little cost. So can everyone else, which results in the state of the average modern inbox.
  - ratherbefuddled 5y ago
    Yes, it's a sorry state of affairs. I'd escaped that sort of thing until recently when we started working with a client who behaves as though everybody lives in their inbox and sees emails seconds after they're sent. Explaining to them that I look maybe twice a day at emails was interesting. Slack is my problem. I'm trying to train myself to be disciplined but too many people treat it as synchronous.

TameAntelope 5y ago

Maybe I'm just refusing to let go of a useful tool, but how many tasks do I really need to do at an above-8-yr-old level? It could be perfectly acceptable to apply 15 fewer IQ points across the board to my problems if I can get more of those problems solved in a fixed amount of time.

m1117 5y ago

It's better to single task on a multi-task assignment than multi-task on a single-task assignment.

saagarjha 5y ago

> So the next time you're writing your boss an email during a meeting, remember that your cognitive capacity is being diminished to the point that you might as well let an 8-year-old write it for you. Yeah, no. Stick to the paper and stop trying to sensationalize it, please.

curiousllama 5y ago
Joke's on them I never focused in on the meeting

andrewstuart 5y ago

My primary school age son, and anecdotally, lots of other kids of similar age, relentlessly multitask in ways that hurts my brain just to think about. He literally is playing a game, watching a YouTube video in another screen, and talking to friends at the same time, and in the most extreme case, is even listening to an audiobook or podcast as well. Asking kids about it, they all say that's just what they do and look at us oldies like we are from the 20th century or something.

wvenable 5y ago
I've noticed the exact same thing. My son will constantly be doing multiple things at once -- watch a youtube video while playing a game, etc. Although when I was a kid a literally did everything with the TV on in the background.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  And I did college physics homework with the tape deck running. (I'd turn it off when I really needed to focus, though...)
  - Moru 5y ago
    I would turn the stereo on so I could focus for homework. Always needed something in the background. I'm 47. 20 years ago I had no problem having three to five conversations running in private chats mediating between guild members, keeping notes about them so I could remember for next session and still grinding XP in demanding highlevel areas of an MMORPG. Now? All quiet and maybe I can concentrate enough to finish one task at a time. When I visit people with TV on in the background I have a very hard time to talk to anyone.
periheli0n 5y ago
It would be interesting to see how much of all that information is actually retained. I bet kids are much better at filtering out background noise than grown-ups are.
5y ago

grouphugs 5y ago

ahh, yes, the fickle balance between retaining and oligarchy and not letting it work you too hard well, that's just not gonna work is it

deleted 5y ago

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TameAntelope 5y ago

> 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. Does anyone know which study this is?

zeristor 5y ago
University of London just sounds a bit wonky, a reputable UoL college such as: UCL, King’s QMW, SoAS, LSE, or Birkbeck would be recognisable by name. Imperial was part of UoL until 2007.

danboarder 5y ago

Multitasking gets a bad rap but I would suggest that not everything we call "multitasking" disrupts focus. For example, many tasks become background processes and some provide rhythm for improved focus. In my experience, for example, listening to a Lex Fridman podcast while doing Photoshop design works great together and I think is better when done together than not, perhaps using different parts of the brain. Likewise, listening to music while coding are complementary tasks for me. So some tasks multitask together with others fine and improve focus, while others interrupt or disrupt focus, in my experience.

slver 5y ago
Yup. The key is to find combinations of activities that don't conflict with each other. I also can work and breathe at the same time (neat trick). /s
- Rimpinths 5y ago
  Right. I love to listen to music while coding, but I couldn't listen to a podcast. I've tried, but I can't write words and listen to words at the same time. But music is no problem.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    I can only listen to instrumental music, anything with lyrics kills my productivity.
redisman 5y ago
There does seem to be some more bandwidth combining “art” and “science”. Trying to listen to any talking while programming is almost impossible but if I’m drawing or sculpting or anything like that then it’s more complementary

LZ_Khan 5y ago

Genuine question then.. how are we supposed to function properly as software engineers, especially in jobs with long feedback loops? The nature of my job is that I'm almost more of a train conductor than a software engineer. I configure a job, run it, then wait for 10-30 minutes to get the results. I do this for maybe 5 jobs at a time, on 5 different projects. Naturally I feel a lot of stress and cognitive burden while doing this but I figured it's part of the job. Is this normal for backend, distributed-computing heavy jobs? Is there a better strategy I can adopt? Should I try to get a new role with a shorter compile-test feedback loop?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jvidalv 5y ago
Get a frontend job, instant compile time haha
- OhSoHumble 5y ago
  Yeah, but the loss of sanity usually cancels out the productivity gains.
- pyridines 5y ago
  Not necessarily, our frontend repo takes almost as long as the backend to compile. I'm hoping we switch to esbuild at some point.
  - nanagojo 5y ago
    Can't wait till it is feature complete and CRA and Nextjs embrace it.
curiousllama 5y ago
Multitasking in this context means doing multiple things concurrently, not consecutively. It may be hard to launch a job, switch over to configure another one, switch back when you get the results from the first, finish launching the second, reconfigure & relaunch the first, and then move on to the third while 1 & 2 are running etc etc etc... but it's not strictly multitasking, it's just ocntext switching. Also hard, also expensive, just different.

josefresco 5y ago

My wife (like many wives) multi-tasks to the extreme. Coordinating our household, and running a business means she always has about 100 things in her brain at once. Always on her phone, always planning, making lists, researching, ordering. It's certainly common, and a wonder to witness however I worry about the effects on her brain, as she has trouble sometimes vocalizing her thoughts. She often forgets someone's name, or something's name and it takes her a minute to slow down and find the words. It's happening more and more, and concerns her. I wonder if it's a byproduct of just age or years of multi-tasking and "mind juggling" so many things.

gobins 5y ago
I wonder if it is a biological thing. My wife excels at multitasking but I can barely do two things at a time. I did notice the delayed speech with my wife as well.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  I'd hope not as I'm good at it, but my wife is awful at it. She pauses the TV to read a text message.
  - VRay 5y ago
    haha, it's the same deal for me and my wife I'll gladly do 2-3 things at once all day, but she has to pause the TV to answer a question or read a text message I don't think I'm as good at multitasking as lot of people in this thread, though.. I can multitask while programming and feel like I'm doing a great job, but then in retrospect it's clear that my output was maybe 20% of what it would've been if I'd been fully focused I found that out in college, homework assignments would take 30 minutes at my desk or multiple hours in front of the TV I think I need to get better about silencing Slack and keeping the web browser closed at work, come to think of it.. It's dang frustrating having to wait 2+ minutes for something to compile and run though..
periheli0n 5y ago
I recognize those symptoms. Happens to me too when stress levels have been constantly elevated for a while. Usually that's also when stupid errors start creeping into what I do. I think it might be an early sign of burnout.

mapcars 5y ago

This is not true, there are yogis who can do dozens and even hundreds things at the same time. These researchers study people who never did any work on their mind and make statements about whole humanity.

leoh 5y ago
I have never heard of this, source?
- mapcars 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzlIfzj6xfo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzlIfzj6xfo
Jiocus 5y ago
Are you telling me these people don't need Kubernetes engineering in their operations and still deliver value to their clients?
- mapcars 5y ago
  Well, even in my company we don't have Kubernetes. I'm not a devops so can't elaborate more on this one :)

slver 5y ago

Previous studies: - "Women 'better at multitasking' than men, study finds" https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24645100 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-24645100 This study: - "Multitasking Lowers IQ" - "Successful People Don't Multitask" - "While more research is needed to determine if multitasking is physically damaging the brain (versus existing brain damage that predisposes people to multitask), it's clear that multitasking has negative effects." I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

tzs 5y ago
> "Women 'better at multitasking' than men, study finds" They tested this on Mythbusters and got the same result [1]. [1] https://mythresults.com/battle-of-the-sexes-round-2 https://mythresults.com/battle-of-the-sexes-round-2
booleandilemma 5y ago
I don't know whether to laugh or cry. You can do both but not at the same time.

agumonkey 5y ago

personal anecdote but after trying too hard and feeling actual physical "pain" I came to the conclusion that learning needs a threshold of closure (which feels good), a coarse level conclusion about what was just processed. Piling up unconclusive signals on top of each other results in wounds it seems.

periheli0n 5y ago

From a computer science perspective, context switching is hugely expensive in humans, and that's why they are not good at multitasking. Strictly speaking, even computers don't execute multiple tasks in parallel, at least not on the same core. Even with hyperthreading, each step in the pipeline can only work on one datum at a time. Computation is always serialised, and any context switching comes at a cost. It's just that in computers this cost doesn't matter so much, and/or it's outweighed by the benefits of weaving tasks into each other. Nevertheless, Multitasking is a myth, technically.

sys_64738 5y ago

People don’t multitask so much as task switch.

vladmk 5y ago

Read this while multitasking too smh gotta stop

Impassionata 5y ago

If you constrain 'performance' to things which can be easily measured and then test how multitasking affects those measurements, you can come to some broad conclusions that are also useless.

goatcode 5y ago

I wonder what this says about pair programming, given that writing code and communicating are pretty different tasks, according to imaging: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-brain-code-decipher-neural-mechanics.html https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-brain-code-decipher-n...

cma 5y ago
Or "talk me through it as you do it" whiteboard interviewing
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

calderarrow 5y ago

Somewhat of a personal tangent, but I exclusively use 1 screen, and rarely split windows or have more than 1 application open when working. When I need to bounce between code/browser, documentation/code, or email/HN, I use the alt/command-tab functionality. I find it slower having to switch between viewing different screens or moving my head, yet I'm the only one in my friend group who does this -- everyone else seems to prefer dual monitors. I'm curious if HN people find that dual monitors feel like more of a distraction, and if it's at all related to multitasking.

Graffur 5y ago
It's not so much about number of monitors but screen estate.
buwka 5y ago
I definitely find dual monitors or more for splitting code, documentation, or other relevant project information to be similar to having multiple papers lying across my desk. I don’t want to stack the pages on top of one another but instead I prefer to lie them all on one large desk. Usually I’m only working on one page but need other references. If another paper truly is important than I can use Spectacle to quickly reorganize. Having email, slack, discord, or HN open is an absolute no go. Nothing more distracting than focusing on a project and seeing new emails or messages stream in. I try to limit those to a separate laptop or tablet at all times.
webdev23 5y ago
I’m just like you. In the afternoons, I switch from my monitor to just my laptop. I sometimes prefer a smaller screen so I experience less eyestrain

Graffur 5y ago

Can I show this to my boss..? Jokes aside, I literally have felt the effects of multitasking in work. My brain stopped working effectively. In addition, I lost all desire to work. I wish there wasn't a book advertised at the bottom of this article. I feel like I can't share it.

238475235243 5y ago

There are people who have had a cognitive impairment they've worked with and they're are people who haven't. If you have a brain injury, head trauma, stroke, cognitive migraine.... You're aware of the space you vacate. You can feel it missing and its "a thing". For everyone else, you just convince yourself you're just as effective as you were. You think multitasking works or driving after two beers is ok. You're not aware of what is outside of your constrained cognition.

treeman79 5y ago
Been all of these. Used to multi task like crazy when younger. Turned out it was a coping mechanism for severe ADHD. Then had a few years of brain injuries. I would see a problem. Say “reverse a string”, and think oh that’s trivial. A week later I would finally finish. I “knew” how to solve the problem, but as you described something was missing. Eventually recovered, plus got on adhd medication. Now I don’t multitask much. Only if I skip medication. I still can but it’s harder unless I’m off medication. In general I’m much more productive. But grander problems are a little harder as I’m not thinking too much beyond the moment.
- bob_theslob646 5y ago
  Have there been any long term studies on ADHD medication ?

aussieguy1234 5y ago

Remember, this doesn't mean you can't get multiple things done. Just do them one at a time wherever possible. You'll actually get all the things you need to do done faster

lostmsu 5y ago

This is total crap. TL;DR; 1. When doing multiple things at once performance is reduced in each of those things (thank you capt. Obvious). 2. Doing multiple things at once in a specific setting correlates with reduced activity in some brain areas. Casuality not demonstrated either way. No demonstrated relationship between "brain damage" and lower activity, so the claim in the title is at least two logical errors away from the raw data. 3. Buy this new book about EQ (which is pseudoscientific crap on its own).

dentalperson 5y ago
Yes, I'm surprised more HN folk don't call out #1. To be clear, the author is purporting that lower performance on an IQ test when doing another task means multitasking implies that a lower IQ. This seems crazy to me, but maybe I've been multitasking too much.

throwawaygimp 5y ago

Warning - I read some early research about this topic, something I was interested in at the time, around 15 years ago. Since then I've been actively trying to avoid multitasking as much as possible over the last decade or so. It did, I believe, have one unforeseen side-effect: I now struggle to multitask in relatively simple situations where it's necessary. Maybe it's just because I'm getting older (42), but I seem to struggle with it much more than any of my peers. Still, I wouldn't change anything. I believe I'm as or more productive per unit of time than anyone I've worked with. Edit - one more side effect: I used to regularly work 12+ hour days. Now I'm _completely_ spent after 7-8 hours, as those hours are so intense.

acituan 5y ago

Yet multitasking is still being branded as something of a higher cognitive functioning. Byung-Chul Han in The Burnout Society claims that it is the opposite: > “The attitude toward time and environment known as “multitasking’ does not represent civilisational progress. Human beings in the late-modern society of work and information are not the only ones capable of multitasking. Rather, such an aptitude amounts to regression. Multitasking is commonplace among wild animals. It is an attentive technique indispensable for survival in the wilderness. > An animal busy with eating must also attend to other tasks. For example, it must hold rivals away from its prey. It must constantly be on the lookout, lest it be eaten while eating. At the same time, it must guard its young and keep an eye on its sexual partner. In the wild, the animal is forced to divide its attention between various activities. That is why animals are incapable of contemplative immersion—either they are eating or they are copulating.” > ... > We owe the cultural achievements of humanity—which include philosophy—to deep, contemplative attention.”

trhway 5y ago
>multitasking is still being branded as something of a higher cognitive functioning. not surprisingly given that it is branded that way by the "multitaskers". I mean you wouldn't find many deep contemplative thinkers at the mid- or top-level of corporations or even of the whole society. These days the ability to deep contemplative thinking is more like a handicap relegating you into the rank-and-file.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  I disagree. Multitasking is starting to be seen as what it actually is. If you're managing well, you'll at the very least be familiar with the doubt around humans being capable of multitasking effectively.

abc_lisper 5y ago

Multitasking is easier if the task you are switching to is well understood. So, one way of knowing if people understand something well is, if they can jump in and out of it without much effort

hintymad 5y ago

Does it depend on the definition of multi-tasking? We take multiple courses in colleges, and we switch context all the time. I often worked on an assignment or reviewed coursework between two classes. I usually took no fewer than 5 classes in a semester, and a class usually had 4 to 6 assignments, 2 to 3 midterms, and a final. So we often had multiple assignments or tests due at the same day, which means we had to work on multiple tasks in a day too. Similarly, we became more multi-tasked when we grew more senior. A design review now, a product planning meeting in the next hour, followed by an 1-on-1 to discuss a particular issue, and then a task to write a white paper. Again, multi tasking in my eyes. One does carve out some quite time for deep think, but the majority of the time will be broken into back-to-back meetings for multiple tasks.

onethought 5y ago
I think the point is, it is suboptimal. You’d get better results if you minimised the contextual splits for natural moments of completion rather than unnatural moments of interrupt. This holds true in computing theory, feeding 10 things to a single core in sequence is more efficient than feeding 10 things at once and having the CPU handle interrupts.

SquibblesRedux 5y ago

The problem may not be task switching, but rather an intentional suppression of inhibitory control. Another interesting perspective on task-switching (or set-shifting): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_switching_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task_switching_(psychology) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354620/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354620/ (The Attentional Set Shifting Task: A Measure of Cognitive Flexibility in Mice)

29athrowaway 5y ago

> "That is why animals are incapable of contemplative immersion—either they are eating or they are copulating." I think there are many humans that fit into this description.

taneq 5y ago
Humans ⊂ Animals, after all.
greshario 5y ago
This guy has clearly never looked at an actual animal, like a dog dozing in the sun or a dolphin surfing along a wave for fun.
- mdgrech23 5y ago
  dogs aren't wild animals though - their existence really only exists b/c we allow it.
  - steve_adams_86 5y ago
    Wild, previously domesticated dogs are a thing. Some strays out there would continue to survive without humans around, too.
- bonoboTP 5y ago
  Right. Many predators only eat occasionally and then lie around doing nothing for days.
  - 29athrowaway 5y ago
    The presence of a predator scares the prey. And that is useful in many ways. It helps vegetation regenerate, among other things.
ackbar03 5y ago
Objectively speaking there's nothing necessarily wrong with that? If anything could be something we aspire to

not2b 5y ago

For a developer, I think multitasking between two tasks (a higher priority task and a lower priority task that can be worked on while the higher priority task is blocked or waiting or otherwise stuck) is manageable and can work well. Beyond two the task switching cost gets too high in a hurry. It's also not good if management/customers are insisting that both tasks are very high priority, it's too stressful to juggle them then.

Quekid5 5y ago
I'm not sure that's multitasking per se. That's just prioritizing or triage. You're still working on a single thing at a time.
- not2b 5y ago
  But that's exactly what a multitasking OS does. When the current task is waiting on I/O, it switches to the other task. It executes one at a time (at least, once per core).
  - lanstin 5y ago
    There's finishing one thing and letting the context go, and then asking "what is the next most urgent task" and then doing that task with single-pointed attention. There is also trying to mull over some software problem while a conference call where people are planning something that matters to you and you keep one ear out for if you are called out or a special topic to you is called out. The first is not harmful but the second certainly feels bad. There's also getting into the next most urgent task and getting deep into it and being free to just ignore all notifications for however long vs. people expecting to ping you on slack and get a real time answer or invite you to a call with 10 minutes notice and expecting you to be there. Again, the second is stressful and injurious to good quality work.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  No one really multitasks, it's all task switching.
- 5y ago

mac-chaffee 5y ago

Direct links to the studies cited: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-resear... http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/uos-bsr092314.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-09/uos-bsr092314...

jasonjei 5y ago

No wonder we have a hard-time writing multi-threaded code ;)

roonyh 5y ago

What exactly is multitasking? I am a software developer. I listen to music while I work. Is that multitasking? If I pick up a different issue to work on while I wait for code review on another, is that multitasking?

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

The actual test, in any case: > In each of their tests, the researchers split their subjects into two groups: those who regularly do a lot of media multitasking and those who don't. > In one experiment, the groups were shown sets of two red rectangles alone or surrounded by two, four or six blue rectangles. Each configuration was flashed twice, and the participants had to determine whether the two red rectangles in the second frame were in a different position than in the first frame. > They were told to ignore the blue rectangles, and the low multitaskers had no problem doing that. But the high multitaskers were constantly distracted by the irrelevant blue images. Their performance was horrible. > Because the high multitaskers showed they couldn't ignore things, the researchers figured they were better at storing and organizing information. Maybe they had better memories. > The second test proved that theory wrong. After being shown sequences of alphabetical letters, the high multitaskers did a lousy job at remembering when a letter was making a repeat appearance. > "The low multitaskers did great," Ophir said. "The high multitaskers were doing worse and worse the further they went along because they kept seeing more letters and had difficulty keeping them sorted in their brains." So the usual soft science dreck of investigating vague, ill-defined umbrella terms such as “multitasking” by investigating a highly constructed, specific scenario that never occurs in real life that falls under it, and then extrapolating this result to all of real life, not to mention inferring causation from correlation. Logic of the form of “Eating is bad, because we fed our test subjects objects human beings normally never eat, and we concluded it was very averse to their health to eat marbles, shards of glass, and mercury.”

SMAAART 5y ago

People misunderstand what multitasking is. If you're downloading a huge file that takes 1 hour, don't just stand there watching, put a timer on, and go work on a different task. If you're copying a huge document, don't just stand there, put a timer on and go d another task. Learning to recognize processes that can be run in parallel is key, but it doesn't mean to do 2 things at ones; anything that requires some level of thinking can only be done single-tasking.

TeeMassive 5y ago

I don't multitask, I just schedule scripts and other automated tasks in parallel. I've never seen someone be more productive while doing more than one things at once.

shakaijin 5y ago

I have been noticing the impact of excessive multitasking on myself lately, and I am now actively trying to avoid it. At first i thought that multitasking would increase my overall efficiency by filling in gaps of downtime in certain tasks, but it soon turned me into a person incapable of focusing on anything deeply. One day, I noticed that I am unable to read a book the same way i did as a child (cover to cover in one sitting for example), and it kind of shocked me. I now have a rule that i do one thing only, and start other tasks only when the previous task has been finished. This applies to both productive work (learning, programming etc.) and entertainment (YouTube, books etc.). I think that it is starting to help, but I feel like it will take time to undo the damage of years of bad multitasking.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago
Have you noticed that your inability to just “read a book” differs by genre? I suffer from that with pretty much any fiction, but can still lose afternoons reading a well-written history or scientific explainer.
- watwut 5y ago
  Not op, but yes. It is not just difference in genre. The books that appeared to me as awesome when I was younger are completely uninteresting now. I try to read and switch into twitter within three pages. But, once in a while I run into completely different book and cant stop reading it. Books that I would find boring back then I think. Like you, I read way more well-written history now, but there is also occasional fiction. I think that the big difference is that once you are well into adulthood, it is much harder to come across book recommendation that suits you. The market is dominated by youth needs I guess.
  - rolandog 5y ago
    Or, have we become boring? I've noticed I have outgrown some things I loved as a young adult, like most videogames; though I don't know if it's just me being anti-commercial stuff, trying to avoid becoming a pay-to-win customer, and more of a buy-once customer.

Aerroon 5y ago

>While more research is needed to determine if multitasking is physically damaging the brain (versus existing brain damage that predisposes people to multitask), it's clear that multitasking has negative effects. The anterior cingulate cortex is involved in attention management and impulsivity.[0] This has been known for quite some time. It has even been observed that children with ADHD have thinning in (some parts of) the anterior cingulate cortex.[1] It seems like quite a stretch to exclaim that multitasking itself causes that. It's obviously not impossible, but seems implausible - at least implausible enough to not make it a separate paragraph in a short article. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC53241/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC53241/ [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23713508/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23713508/

bob_theslob646 5y ago
What concrete evidence would you like to see?

m3kw9 5y ago

Maybe you are already cognitive impaired which is why you tend towards multitasking, because your brain is saying focusing too long hurts it. It’s a subconscious move.

holri 5y ago

I wonder if playing polyphonic music has the same effects. Have pianists a lower IQ than trumpet players?

ex3xu 5y ago
My intuition would be that the kind of multitasking that can cause damage refers to trying to do multiple tasks that require a certain threshhold of focused attention and executive function, whereas musical training allows for the encoding of muscle memory to a level that doesn't really require executive function. I'd be curious to see if that intuition holds up in practice, though I have my doubts about whether IQ or EQ would necessarily be the right quantitative metric.
- holri 5y ago
  Playing polyphonic music like Bach Fugues requires an enormous amount of focused attention and executive function. Relying on muscle memory alone does not work at all for me and all musicians I know that play polyphonic Bach music.
  - ex3xu 5y ago
    I think as musical training increases, the amount of energy required for specific kinds of bimanual motor coordination tasks decreases, see Haslinger, 2004 [0]. Regardless, looking at the literature, logitudinal studies seem to indicate that playing polyphonic music seems to improve brain plasticity rather than cause damage. Maybe the damage is more related to the context switching aspect of multitasking. [0]: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hbm.20028 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/hbm.20028
    - holri 5y ago
      In my personal experience playing polyphonic music is extremely fast context switching. That is, you can not sing two melodies at the same time, but you can switch very fast between them if you sing in your head mentally. That enables polyphonic piano playing / hearing.

richardoey 5y ago

I agree with him

usgroup 5y ago

"So the next time you're writing your boss an email during a meeting, remember that your cognitive capacity is being diminished to the point that you might as well let an 8-year-old write it for you." Another fine piece of science journalism. Pass.

georgewsinger 5y ago

There's something fishy about the "multitasking [and long working hours] is bad" fad of the past 10 years. If I had to guess, it's that these studies aren't sensitive to the outliers. Imagine telling e.g. Elon Musk "multitasking and long hours are bad for your productivity". I've been keeping very detailed data on my personal productivity for years, while taking all of the consensus wisdom ("long hours = bad", "multitasking = bad") to heart. What I've instead found is that long hours (literal 14+ hour days) makes me more consistently productive. Multitasking also has a strong synergistic component to it that I suspect doesn't show up in these narrow studies.* If multitasking across different projects leads to insights that shave years off of your respective project plans, but otherwise makes you slower locally, it's still more than worth it. Again using Elon as an example: Tesla and SpaceX have been made mutually stronger by insights being cross applied the two enterprises. * To be fair I'm speaking more of multitasking at the project level, not at the minute-to-minute level.

welterde 5y ago
Curious by which metric you are measuring productivity. Also wouldn't it make quite a difference on what time scale you are multi-tasking? If it's on the time scale of days between context switches or hours/minutes.
filmfact 5y ago
But by focusing the on just one - SpaceX might be on Mars, and Tesla might have a real self-driving car. Unfortunately it’s difficult to test that hypothesis. And it’s survivor bias to pick Elon Musk.
hungryforcodes 5y ago
Multitasking and doing many things in a long shift are not synonymous if those things are not interrupted. The damage of multitasking is the interruption and the consequent context switch. Working 12-14 hours a day on a couple of things is more in line with deep work, which is actually very productive for alot of people.
kqr 5y ago
Maybe humans need a little bit of everything? Short working hours interspersed with a few longer days, focusing on some days, and intense multitasking and coordination on others? So if you're life currently involves only long days filled with multitasking (probably very common in some walks of life) the solution involves shorter days and more focused time, whereas for others it might be the other way around. Whatever the truth is, I highly doubt humans are optimised specifically for exactly eight (or six) hours of focused work every day. I suspect we are helped by some variation, including the occasional 14 hour multitasking day.

newgradhire 5y ago

This has been a long time struggle for me and I’ve noticed it’s deteriorating effects especially with quarantine. I’ve been getting some reminders from here and deep work which has helped me immensely

mesaframe 5y ago

I have been aware of this since years how. Now I wonder if I subconsciously do multi tasking. Checking emails while listening to sing and simultaneously coding. Is this multi tasking or multiplexing?

hyperpallium2 5y ago

The Top Idea in Your Mind http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html

Gauge_Irrahphe 5y ago

In other words, people used to do multiple tasks at once are bad at doing one task at once. An utterly ridiculous concern.

arichard123 5y ago

How do I know when I am multitasking? If I am cooking a meal, and that meal has several items on the go at once, am I multitasking? What if I have a complicated coding problem with multiple requirements which I have to consider, perhaps with political implications, so that I'm switching my thinking from a technical viewpoint, to a user experience viewpoint, to a "what will the leadership think" viewpoint? Is that multitasking?

toopok4k3 5y ago
Is the meal you are cooking a new recipe to you? You gotta plan and do things slower don't you? If it's something you know how to do, you don't really use brainpower on the serialization of when to do what, but experience. Good and fast cooking is all about serializing tasks, not doing multiple things at the same time. My breakfast routines are routines, If I start to mix up my routine, egg, bread and coffee timings are all screwed up. I overcook the egg, coffee is late. I have noticed timing and serializing tasks is everything when cooking anything. I think this is where the french(?) mise en place comes from, prepare every ingredient before hand, so when you have multiple stoves going on, ingredients are ready and you can focus on time critical stuff.
twh270 5y ago
For me, it's when I am consciously paying attention to more than one thing either "at the same time" (watching YouTube while cooking) or in rapid succession (run unit tests in the IDE, check email, look at story in JIRA, look at the weather on my phone, go back to the IDE to fix a failing test, ...). I was in this mode for years, racing around on overdrive, and I've been slowly learning to do One. Thing. At. A. Time. again. It's been hard because the habit is so ingrained. And probably also because it 'feels' like I'm less productive.
- mastercoder82 5y ago
  Paying attention to more than one thing "at the same time" - is not humanly possible. So when you are simultaneously doing two tasks that demand attention, what you are actually doing is rapid context switching. The thing to understand is that - “attention has inertia”. Context switching has two implications: 1. It drains your energy - You have limited energy available every day. If you spend most of your energy in context switching, very less is available for actual work. And if you over-work, you cause real physical damage to yourself. 2. You can’t do any deep work - Deep work requires attention on a single thing for a sustained period of time. The idea is to work with your attention - not against it. The best way to do that is to reduce context switching and eliminate attention residue. Here is how: 1. Short-duration tasks - When you pick a task, finish it completely before moving on to the next one. Have distraction-free slots for work and batch similar tasks together. 2. Long-duration tasks - Pause-and-resume approach. When you pause a task, take a mental dump of its current state. This helps in two ways - first, your attention will not linger when you move to the next task and second, it will be easier to pick up when you resume that task.

nathias 5y ago

Focus is a mental habit connected to reading habits which are mostly just habits of eye movements. If you train your focus by reading long books or similar activity you will get it back, dark patterns are brain/mind damage.

GuB-42 5y ago

Not convinced by this article. It looks like the author tries to make a point, cherry picking articles that fit his view. First, there is no causal relationship, something he mentions "more research is needed to determine if multitasking is physically damaging the brain (versus existing brain damage that predisposes people to multitask)", but dismisses it right after "it's clear that multitasking has negative effects". It is also interesting how he went from "smaller density" to "damage", which implies some kind of destruction rather than adaptation. Then there is all that part about EQ, which mixes bad behavior (not paying attention), with other forms of multitasking like having plenty of stuff open on your computer. I mean, I can monotask during a meeting by not paying attention at all. Then it connects it to the "brain damage" study by saying that some of EQ-related parts of the brain are also related to multitasking, without showing the whole picture. The IQ and performance related part is more convincing, but also isn't really tied to the "brain damage" part. It is also a bit confusing as evidenced by a commenter asking "what is multitasking". That IQ drops when you are doing two things at once is kind of obvious, but it is nice to have a study to back it up. The question is "is it worth it"? And now comes what I think is the only insightful part: media multitasking, basically having more than one thing on your screen(s) makes it harder to switch tasks properly.

temporallobe 5y ago

Software developers are often expected to multitask, a lot, especially now in this new age of agile. This takes the form as multiple meetings per day, email saturation, multiple IM platforms, phone calls, the expectation to know and do everything as a “full stack” developer, context switching, reporting metrics, etc. If you work in multiple projects, all that overhead is just multiplied. This the current reality and I don’t see it changing any time soon because we designed this tyrannical system by which we now live.

arisAlexis 5y ago

I find it strange in an evolutionary way. We had too many "discoveries" in the field of neuroscience and psychology only to be reverse so I wouldn't trust the findings too much.