Multitasking: A Falacy

As you are reading this post, chances are that you are also trying to do a number of other things. You are probably thinking that that you are multitasking but lo and behold, it is simply called “rapid toggling between tasks,” and you are engaged in constant context switching. A study showed that the distraction of an interruption, combined with the brain drain of preparing for that interruption, made our test takers 20 percent dumber. That’s enough to turn a B-minus student (80 percent) into a failure (62 percent). There is some evidence that we’re not just suckers for that new text message, or addicted to it; it’s actually robbing us of brain power, too. Tweet about this at your own risk. It seems as if technology is becoming more enabling in this aspect. With all the app development and new phone services, it is easier to pretend that we are multitasking. Go ahead, try to prove me wrong.