Why Multitasking Is Wrong

Messing with Multiple Tasks Showing a friend, family member,or an employer the ability to pay attention to multiple tasks at once seems like an impressive performance to put on. No matter where a person goes in this world, they always want to present their skills in innovation and productivity. Whether it be a sport where shots on net can be put on the board as well as assists and goals, in school typing a paper and doing calculus at the same time, or at work where tackling phone calls and appointments is ‘not that difficult’, multitasking is the thought to be universal sifter of the scrubs. However, these people who think multitasking is good for your brain, memory, and saves time and money in the workplace are wrong. Multitasking is not …show more content…
While reading an array of different articles on multitasking, I have learned three very important things. First of all, that many students who do their homework also have their minds fixated on other things while they work. According to a study done by the Los Angeles Times in their Bloomberg Poll, they found that 53 percent of kids 12-17 did at least one other thing while studying, while 21 percent performed three other tasks simultaneously (Mithers, The Multitasking Mess). Secondly, multitasking can not only have a negative effect on the productivity of work, but also a negative effect on the brain. In a Stanford report written by Adam Gorlick, titled Media Multitaskers pay mental price, Stanford study shows, he states that a test was done on 100 students on multitasking. Amazingly, the study found that people who indulge their brains on a number of different electronic streams of information are worse off in categories such as; paying attention, controlling memory, and switching from one job to another, in comparison to someone who prefers to do one task at at time. Lastly, While reading The Multitasking Mess, I found out that a totally different part of the brain is used when one learns one task at a time, as opposed to multitasking. When a task is isolated, learned on its own, the part of the brain that is used to learn the task is the hippocampus. This shows promise because the hippocampus has the authority to oversee declarative memory, and use what was learned in new situations. On the other hand, if a task is learned while multitasking, it is all accomplished using the striatum rather than the hippocampus. Memory learned by the striatum is less adaptable to different situations and therefore your brain cannot pull it out of context in new thinking