The Myth of Multitasking

Questions:

1. Why is multitasking considered by many psychologists to be a myth?
2. To what does the term "response selection bottleneck" refer?
3. David Meyer has found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline. Why is this important?
4. Explain what Russell Podrack found regarding multitasking.
5. What does the author conclude could happen to our culture as a result of increased multitasking?

Answers to questions:

1. Many psychologists believe that the idea of multitasking is simply a myth because humans are only born with one brain, which implies that we are a single person. Through the studies that have been conducted, they have proven that the idea of multitasking is not that a person does all the things at the same time, instead, it is the switching and alternation of tasks in just seconds. It has been proven that it is not effecient at all, since our mind focuses on one action and forgets or does poorly on the other one.
2. The psychologist, Marois, found out about this term that occurs when the brain is forced to respond to several stimuli at the same moment, which only leads to time loss because the brain is the one that decides which task to perform.
3. It is important because Meyer contributed to the fact that this release may cause long-term health problems on the person if they are not controlled and this may contribute to loss of short-term memory, which would affect a lot on the normal way of living of a person.
4. The main idea of Russel in his finding was that the multitasking affects the way of learning of a person. He states that learning with multitasking, makes it less flexible and that the information can therefore not be retrieved in an easy manner. To explain this, he conducted an experiment in which he analyzes the brain of people who don't use multitasking and the brain of those who do use multitasking. As a result, he found that the people who do use multitasking use a part of their brain called striatum. This section of the brain is involved with the learning of new skills but in a lame way, while the people who don't use it tend to store and retrieve information more precisely. He finally states that humans are born to focus on one task and not on multiple of them because this makes the works and ideas less efficient and precise.
5. As a conclusion, he states that the society may gain information through multitasking but loose wisdom. This means that people will learn a lot of things and recieve more information but the way they act upon it will be less efficient.

"THE MYTH OF MULTITASKING" by Christine Rosen