One of the most notable virtues of a Gen-Z candidate's CV, is ‘multitasking’. If the boss sees that you can multitask, you are already the hero worker. As a student, you tend to read notes, write what you understand while also maybe listening to the new single by your favourite singer or watching your team play on big screen.
And yet, that slightest ping on your cell phone or the tap on your back will take you away from the multiple works that you were doing. Hence, it becomes crucial to reflect on whether multitasking is truly possible? Is that making your concentration crisper or taking away from it? And most importantly, is multitasking making you a ‘jack of all trades, master of none?’
“According to an American Psychological Association (APA) survey, roughly 40% of adults routinely multitask with digital devices, significantly increasing self-reported stress and lowering productivity”. This was cited in the paper titled, Digital multitasking and hyperactivity: unveiling the hidden costs to brain health written by Kamrul Hasan, as published in the National Library of Medicine Journal.
The essence of this citation lies in the primary breakdown of the activities that comprise and define multitasking. While people think that a person is doing multiple tasks at the same time, in reality, the brain is just switching rampantly from one task to the other, causing immense stress on the brain. This in turn is reflected through the cognitive slow down of the activities and in the long run, reduces concentration, adds stress and leaves each work half done.
Is the brain really geared to do multiple tasks at once?
Moreover, one has to understand that through the stages of brain development from the early humans to modern geniuses, the brain has been trained to concentrate and work on one task, master it well, and perform it brilliantly. The arrival of too many tasks pushes the brain’s cognitive boundaries which it is not trained or developed to undertake. Hence, many make silly mistakes in their work.
For instance you are listening to an audio book while journaling or taking down notes. After the tasks are done, if some asks you to reiterate the essence of the audio book, you would invariably find blank sequences in your head. This means during those blank sequences the brain was concentrating on taking down notes rather than listening and registering the audio book. Moreover, if you later revise your notes, you might spot random words lifted from the narration. This is a clear reflection that during those mistakes, the brain was concentrating more on the narration than on copying notes.
Biologically, each task is a web of multiple organs and nerves functioning together. If you listen to a song, write down notes, read a different content, all at the same time, and then each organ is doing their own activity. This means neither organs send the right signal to the brain and no function happens satisfactorily on its own, as a whole.
Should multi-tasking be on your charts or not?
Thus, while multitasking is definitely a modern-day necessity, it is important to understand whether the body and brain is biologically built for it or not. In the wake of not being able to work together, the organs malfunction, each task goes haywire and nothing comes off as desired, except a rise in the stress levels. So, next time someone asks you to multi-task, stop, think about it , see if its achievable and then work. At the end of the day, people would want the tasks complete error-free and not really focus on how they were completed.
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