Article - How Multi-Tasking MESSES Up Your Mind

A Bhil tribal hunter patiently tracks a wounded mouse deer through the jungles of central India. He’s living fully in the moment, senses wholly attuned to the job in hand - and nothing else.

Virtually a planet away, his urban Indian counterpart sits at a desk tracking and answering multiple, often unrelated, emails and text messages. Unfortunately, the evolution of his very human brain hasn’t caught up with the devices he’s using. For the machines that sit on his desktop have been designed to work on multiple tracks simultaneously...

And as any neuro-scientist can tell you, human brains have been designed by nature to focus on just one thing at a time. Bombarding them with streams of diverse information only slows them down. When people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually switching very fast; from one task after another. And there’s a cognitive cost to all this.

For men, multitasking can drop IQ as much as 15 points, essentially turning them into the cognitive equivalent of an 8-year-old. Studies have shown that subjects who multi-tasked while performing cognitive tasks experienced significant IQ drops. And new research suggests the possibility that cognitive damage associated with multi-tasking could be permanent.

Why then is multitasking so addictive? Completing a tiny task (sending an email, answering a text message, posting a tweet), releases a dollop of dopamine, the reward hormone. Human brains love dopamine, which sets up a cycle of switching between mini-tasks that confer illusionary instant gratification. Somewhat like a drug addict’s next “hit”...

This creates a dangerous feedback loop that makes us feel like we’re accomplishing a ton of work, when we’re really not doing much at all (or at least nothing requiring much critical thinking). 

Multitasking makes it more difficult to organize thoughts and filter out irrelevant information. It also reduces the efficiency and quality of our work. Besides this, multitasking increases production of the stress hormone cortisol. A brain that constantly shifts gears, pumps up stress and leaves it’s owner feeling fatigued and mentally drained.

So multitasking is not a desirable skill to add to your resume, but a bad habit that needs to be kicked. Turn off text notifications, create set time slots for checking emails throughout the day (rather than constant inbox refreshing), and set your mind solely to the task at hand.