Multitasking: Doing less in more time

While not directly related to IT, I came across news of a Stanford study that suggested heavy multitaskers to be incapable of ignoring things. By putting 100 students through a series of tests, it was found that heavy multitaskers became bogged down with irrelevant information. As a result, they performed worse than light multitaskers.

The report noted that, "Results showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory." Indeed, this finding goes contrary to popular supposition that multitaskers are more effective in getting more done. Anthony Wagner, an associate professor of psychology, summed up the situation for heavy multitaskers: "They're not able to filter out what's not relevant to their current goal." Do you constantly attend to your Instant Messaging application and email client when in the office?

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Stanford University News