Mental Habitats: Multitasking
[Exploring Life] Multitasking is a form of mental degradation. We are not capable of working at several different tasks simultaneously. Instead, multitasking is really nothing more than the rapid shifting of attention across a variety of tasks in a vain attempt to accomplish more is less time. We do not accomplish more, and the quality of what we are achieving is often shallow when our attention lacks continuity and focus. Multitasking breeds sub-standard thought and awareness, and from the perspective of the mind it is a serious obstacle to concentration, communication, and creativity. In other words, multitasking is a form of mental degradation.
We live in an age that has been seduced by the need for immediacy. We have come to believe that volume and velocity are core values and an end unto themselves. Multitasking is a mental craving for immediacy. The fantasy of immediacy embraces the delusion that finding ways to do more things in less time is somehow important and meaningful. Multitasking results in the rapid deterioration of our awareness, and therefore the decline in our ability to think, communicate, and create. We have come to assume that if we are not constantly “busy” doing more and more “things” in as little time as possible then we are not accomplishing what we should be. The embrace of multitasking leaves us feeling both overwhelmed and exhausted. Our fantasy with immediacy leaves us feeling alone and isolated in the midst of a crowd.
The word multitasking is a combination of multi with task. Random House defines multitasking as: –noun Computers – the concurrent or interleaved execution of two or more jobs by a single CPU. Multitasking originates in the field of computer science as a term used to describe parallel and simultaneous functions of computer processors. The human mind is not a computer processor; it is something far superior, but more importantly is something significantly different. Computer programs and memory have little in common with the human mind and memory.
Anthropomorphism means to attribute human qualities to other animals or inanimate objects, or to interpret non-human experience and phenomenon as if it were human. Anthro means human, and morph means form. Anthropomorphism creates a perspective in which everything we perceive around us is imbued with human qualities. Techno comes from techne meaning procedures and methods. The word technology does not refer directly to hardware and software, it instead refers to the procedures and methods that result in the invention of the hardware and software. Technopomorphism is therefore, like its kin anthropomorphism, a perspective that attributes the methods and procedures of technology as human qualities. Multitasking originates in technopomorphism and therefore bias.
The World English Dictionary defines multitasking as: “to work at several different tasks simultaneously.” Thus, the dictionary provides us with a definition of something that does not exist. We never “do” tasks simultaneously, instead we rapidly shift our attention obliquely across a collection of tasks stopping only briefly on each one and doing just enough to avoid staying too long. Multitasking is nothing more than a rapid shifting of attention across several different tasks that creates the illusion of simultaneity and heightened productivity: chronic multitasking leads to mental deterioration.
Multi-tasking is certainly a talent, but one that exacts a high price on learning. Formal brain research has shown that the brain can only do one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is accomplished much in the manner of “multiplexing,” an engineering term denoting doing one thing for an instant, then another, and another, and finally returning to the next step of the first task. All this switching is distracting and interferes with memory formation and what memory reseasrchers call “consolidation” into lasting memory.
While multiplexing may be a more accurate term than multitasking to describe the phenomenon of rapidly shifting our attention across an immediate array of tasks, the problem remains the same. Of course, there is nothing wrong with rapidly shifting our attention in situations that require it. However, mental degradation begins to occur when this rapid shifting of attention becomes a habitual mode of interacting with the world around us. The quality of our mind (our thoughts, perceptions, comprehension, apprehension, ideas, imagination, and creativity) degrades as essential capacities such as awareness, discernment, focus, concentration, and contemplation fragment. An obsession with immediacy degrades the optimal functioning of the brain. Our modern approaches to living have become desperately short-sighted, crass, and self-centred. We have created a society that is addicted to the intersection of speed and quantity. We have lost our sense of artistry in life. Our collective experience of life is becoming increasingly fragmented, shallow, taut, agitated, and fearful.
And it turned out that, like alchemy, things didn’t really work out the way we had fantasized, and that every time we do a new task, add on a new task, our performance in every task degrades a little bit. And that’s what science has now shown us. And it’s been a rough realization, because so many of us got used to the idea that we were making time and felt like masters of the universe as we were doing all of these things at once. Another reason that multitasking felt like alchemy is that our brains rewarded us, our bodies rewarded us with a dopamine squirt, a shot of neurochemicals that made us feel great every time we added a new task. So we were rewarded for multitasking by feeling great, and it turned out that we were doing worse and worse at everything we did.
- Sherry Turkle:
As Sherry Turkle notes, the illusion of multitasking is actually reinforced by our brain, which “rewards” us with a neuro-chemical buzz. Our style of interaction with the world around is reflected in the brain. That is to say, how we choose to live affects the physical structure of the brain. When we multi-task we habitually fragment our awareness across a field of rapidly changing tasks. In doing so, we shorten and shallow our attention span while forcing it to move rapidly from location to another. Chronic multi-tasking is a form of hyperactivity and attention deficit that degrades the quality of our life. We feel constantly busy, yet we are exasperating by never seeming to accomplish enough. Chronic multitasking degrades the physical functioning of the brain. The quality of our mind becomes shallow, inconsistent, and impatient, and these qualities are echoed in our behaviour and personality.
When people do their work only in the “interstices of their mind-wandering,” with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.
- Christine Rosen
Multitasking is an illusion that is perhaps more accurately described as multiplexing. The reality is that we are in fact less productive and efficient when our attention is divided. We have come to crave the instantaneous gratification of immediacy, thus achievements the require sustained time, effort, and perseverance are avoided. We lose our direction, but remain excessively busy. We must re-embrace mindful ideals and pursuits such as concentration, focus, resilience, awareness, attention, perception, contemplation, insight, knowledge, clarity, and of course wisdom. If we do not, we risk living an unlived life.