Opinion

Shock, horror! Research shows multi-taskers are bad at multi-tasking

September 3, 2009 07:33
1 min read

If you’re on the phone, listening to music and text messaging while you’re reading this, you might think you’re indulging in some expert multi-tasking. Think again. New research at Stanford University in California shows that rather than possessing amazing skills that enabled them to do numerous activities at the same time, multi-taskers were, according to the researchers, “lousy at everything that’s necessary for multi-tasking”.

I was so surprised when I read about this in the newspaper over breakfast that I stopped my phone conversation in mid-sentence.

"Increasingly, people who are looking at their computer screen are frequently watching TV, listening to the radio, maybe reading print media, chatting, texting," said Professor Clifford Nass, one of the research team. He said he was “totally shocked” by the result of the study, which found that rather than concentrating well on all these activities, multi-taskers were too easily distracted.

“You’d be interested in this story,” I told my husband.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” he replied, without looking up from the Premier League table he was studying on his computer screen. “I can’t do two things at once.”

When he’s finished, I’m sure he’ll be pleased to hear that he and fellow confirmed single-taskers have been vindicated by scientific research.

I’m sure it’s of no relevance that the researchers were male.