Take your time and think about all the things you are doing right now – it’s quite clear to me that you are going through this article, but odds are that you are also doing several things at this same moment. Maybe you’re also listening to some music, using your phone to text a friend, or perhaps you are even watching your television set. In case you are doing all this things at this particular moment then you qualify to be multi-tasking. And maybe you might be thinking that you are very perfect at this balancing act.
Multitasking by definition is the act of engaging in two or more things simultaneously, or it can also be said to involving switching back and forward from an action to the other. Multitasking in some instances also involves performing very many tasks in rapid succession. In the aim of trying to determine the effect of multitasking on people, psychologists have performed a number of experiments that seeks to explain the effect of multitasking on individuals at work, homes, and schools and even in the fields of entertainment. During these experiments study participants are asked to switch tasks and then record with the aim of determining how much time was lost by switching from one task to the other. In one of these studies it was proven that participants were slower than usual when they had to switch in between tasks than when they did the same task repeatedly.
This experiment was performed by Robert Rogers and Stephen Monsell, Another study was also conducted in 2001 by Jeffrey Evans, David Meyer Joshua Rubinstein. It was found out that participants lost a big amount of time as they switched from one task to the other. However in this case it was also found that switching in between tasks by the participants also made the execution of the tasks more complex.
In this case the experiment was done with the aim of gauging the ability of an individual at multitasking by the use of different sets of colors and the mention of the respective color’s name. The number of participants that turned out to perform this experiment was twenty in number. They were recruited from the psychology class and some of the inducements used in the research included pictures, questions, word lists, as well as documentation such as references and URLs. The procedure that was used in the experiment was that the participants used a stopwatch to test as well as see exactly how fast they might say the color of each rectangular box. These were the steps followed in part (a). On the other hand, in part (b) the participants use stopwatches to time themselves with the purpose of seeing exactly how fast they may well state the color of ink used to write each word regardless of what the word said. It is very important to state that each of the twenty students of psychology, who in this case were the participants in this above experiment, followed all the stages stated above as well as in the direction in which they are stated.
The results were then collected and recorded in a file known as a stroop which was the designation of the psychologist developed this experiment. The stroop results recorded clearly showed that discordant which was the part (b) of the experiment whereby the participants used stopwatches to time themselves with the purpose of seeing how fast they could state the color of ink used to write each word regardless of what the word said with produced much error. The stroop results were also used to draw a graph that made analysis of the results collected during the experiment easy.
Most of the participants in this experiment found out that it possibly took them additional time to and that they ended up making more errors in part(b) than in part (a). This is because the participants’ tendency in reading the word in part (b) instead of saying the shade of ink as was instructed. This is known as the stroop effect. This is a phenomenon that was named after the psychologist who discovered it, Stroop. Versions of these tests can also be used in detecting some medical conditions such as problems in the brain functions such as fatigue, brain damages and it can correspondingly be used as far as diagnosing the effects of high mountain climbing on climbers.
In conclusion I am suggesting that productivity might be reduced by as much as 40 percent, which is very a significant percentage, by the psychological blocks formed when people switch in between tasks. Now that we can understand the potential detrimental effect of multitasking, we can be capable of putting this information to work to improve the level productivity and efficiency. Indeed, the situation plays a very important role. The costs of switching in between tasks while texting friends and even entertaining yourself by watching a football match probably are not going to bring up any major glitches.
Conversely, that fraction of a time it takes to change in between tasks could mean life or else death for somebody who is performing an activity like driving toward a sharp corner while trying to catch a good radio station or speaking on the telephone.
The next stint you catch yourself multitasking when trying to be useful or efficient, take a quick evaluation of the numerous things you are trying to attain. Do away with distractions and try to concentrate on one task at a time.
- Jeffrey, E., David, E. E., & Rubinstein, J. S. (2001). Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763-797.
- Monsell, S., & Rogers, R. (1995). The costs of a predictable switch between simple cognitive tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, 207-231.
- Talk of the Nation . (2009). Multitasking May Not Mean Higher Productivity. Retrieved December 5, 2013, from National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112334449
