What are the dangers of multitasking?

Multitasking, so often portrayed as one of the great advantages offered by the use of technology, and even by an evolutionary form of our intelligence, presents clear risks, increasingly confirmed by scientific research. Let's not resign ourselves to the idea of ​​punching our brain. To corner it, under pressure like in a boxing ring, so that it can, like a software program, run multiple tasks simultaneously. The ability to multitask, if and when necessary, is one thing; forgetting that the brain does one thing at a time is another. No more.

What is multitasking?

Throughout our days, we may find ourselves having to do multiple things at once, especially at work. For example, replying to an email while simultaneously writing another, or carrying on a phone conversation. It's called multitasking . Switching from one task to another relatively quickly makes us feel almost like skilled jugglers. In reality, it's just an illusion. Even if we feel very efficient because we're completing multiple tasks at once, we're actually not. Multitasking is a veritable virus that threatens our health. Let's learn to defend ourselves by starting to do one thing at a time.

The harms of multitasking

There is now abundant scientific documentation demonstrating the dangers and wastes of multitasking—to health, time, and human relationships. For example, recent MRI studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health show that intensive screen use in children is linked to a thinning of areas of the cortex, especially in the regions responsible for language and executive functions.

Attention and concentration decline, while anxiety, depression, and loneliness pose double the risk for teenagers who spend more than five hours a day on their smartphone. One experiment showed that students who leave their smartphone at home outperform those who keep it in their pocket, and even more so than those who leave it turned off at their desk.

In a valuable book (A Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age, published by Apogeo) , neurologist Richard E. Cytowic, a world authority on the study of the brain, explains and lists all the potential dangers of multitasking. A truly impressive list of dangers.

What to do to reduce the risks of multitasking

What can we all do, perhaps even trying to pass these ideas on to children, to reduce the risks of multitasking? The first thing is a choice of method. Let's return to the old, healthy habit of "one thing at a time" and learn to regain focus, focusing on a goal, prioritizing the quality of our actions. In short, let's distance ourselves from the harmful frenetic activity of simultaneously using technology. Writing an email, watching TV, talking on the cell phone, using a tablet: too much all at once. The brain needs time to shift from a primary need—talking to someone and staying focused on that conversation—to a secondary one, such as replying to an email. If we try to do both simultaneously, we risk reducing the efficiency of our cognitive performance by up to 40 percent. The primary need remains paramount, but it is pressured, and therefore weakened, by the secondary need just around the corner. The result: we risk doing both things poorly. Life can't be reduced to a series of things to do simultaneously to meet deadlines. It requires time and priorities.

Other solutions, inspired by lightness and simplicity : plan moments, phases, and even periods of digital fasting (we can all do it, and it's not true that we're condemned to be slaves to a smartphone); increase time for conversation, human relationships, and in-person, non-virtual meetings; avoid obsessing over results to be achieved as quickly as possible; avoid giving in to performance anxiety; reclaim the freedom to have your own space and time. If these things seem overwhelming, and they aren't, try to do them gradually. Even one at a time. And start with this question: "Why am I so stubborn about multitasking?"

Why do we insist on doing more things at once?

Reason and common sense should lead us to respect the programming of the computer brain. Do one thing at a time, try to do it as best as possible. But then, why do we persist in doing two, or more, things at the same time, with all the risks that this entails, even in terms of results? This is where the dominance of technology comes into play , which, to win its perpetual tug-of-war with humanity, needs to be fast, super-fast. And it needs to force humanity to follow it, trying to do multiple things simultaneously and falling into its multitasking trap.

Read also:

• Lack of time: we are suffocated by haste
• Haste: The Disease We Have Passed On to Our Children
• How not to waste time on the internet
• Wasting time can be very useful