Multitasking Can Make You Lose Focus
The New York Times
October 24, 2008
By Alina Tugend
1.
Beg – Jan- 2014
While you are reading this article, are you listening to music on the radio? Yelling
at your children? If you are looking at this article online, are you e-mailing or instantmessaging at the same time?
2.
Since the 1990s, we've accepted multitasking -- shifting focus from one task or
responsibility to another in quick succession -- as a natural part of daily life. It gives the
illusion that we're simultaneously "tasking" – actively taking care of important things -but we're really not. All of us spend part or most of our day either switching from one
task to another or doing two or more things at the same time. While multitasking may
seem to be saving us time, mental health professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists
and neuroscientists are finding that it can put us under a great deal of stress and
actually make us less efficient.
3.
Reading an article while listening to music, then stopping to check e-mail
messages and then talking on the phone can be a way of making tasks more fun and
energizing. On the other hand, "you sacrifice focus when you do this," says the
psychiatrist Dr. Edward M. Hallowell.
4.
Of course, this depends on what you're doing. For some people, listening to music
while working actually makes them more creative because they are using different
cognitive functions of awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. However, you
cannot simultaneously e-mail and talk on the phone. The author adds: "I think we're all
familiar with what Dr. Hallowell calls "e-mail voice," when someone you're talking to on
the phone suddenly sounds distracted."
5.
We all know that computers, the smart phone and the cell phone have created a
world very different from that of several decades ago. Then, a desk worker had a
typewriter, a phone and an occasional colleague who dropped into the office to chat. In
the days before the cordless phone, talking on the telephone meant sitting down, putting
your feet up and talking — not doing laundry, cooking dinner, sweeping the floor and
answering the door while the phone is held at your ear.
6.
Nowadays researchers are trying to figure out how the brain shifts attention from
one subject to another. According to Earl Miller, a Picower Professor of Neuroscience
with the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and
Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “human brains have a
very large prefrontal cortex. This part contains the "executive control" process, which
helps us switch and control tasks. We can do a couple of things at the same time if they
are monotonous, but if they demand more cognitive process, the brain has "a severe
bottleneck," he said.
7.
Although the time it takes for our brains to switch tasks may be only a few
seconds, the seconds add up. When doing two jobs that can require real concentration,
such as text-messaging and driving, this can be fatal.
8.
The RAC (Risk Assessment Council) Foundation, a British nonprofit
organization that focuses on driving issues, asked drivers, aged 17 to 24, to use a
driving simulator to see how texting affected driving. Their reaction time between a
stimulus and the response to it was around 35 percent slower when writing a text
message — slower than driving drunk or stoned.
9.
Thus, there are definitely times we should not try to multitask. In fact, we may
think it's nice to say that we should focus on one thing at a time, but the real world
doesn't work that way. We are constantly interrupted. A 2005 study found that
people in an office were interrupted and moved from one project to another about
every 11 minutes. In addition, each time it took about 25 minutes to return to the
original project.
10.
A later study "The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress," found that
"people actually worked faster under conditions where they were interrupted, but they
produced less. Besides, people were as likely to self-interrupt as to be interrupted by
someone else. Further research needs to be done to know why people work in these
patterns, but our increasingly shorter attention spans probably have something to do
with it. During the experiment, after only 20 minutes of interrupted performance, people
reported significantly higher stress, frustration and pressure.
11.
Dr. Hallowell has termed this effort to multitask "attention deficit trait." He wrote:
“Unlike attention deficit disorder, which has a neurological basis, attention deficit trait
comes entirely from the environment. Day in and day out, we plunge ourselves into a
mad rush of activity, and the resulting brain overload has led to the point where our
entire society is suffering from attention deficit. As our minds fill with noise, the brain
gradually loses its capacity to attend fully to anything, desperately trying to keep up with
a multitude of jobs; we constantly feel panic and guilt."
12.
Dr. Hallowell suggests we should reconstruct boundaries: train ourselves not to
look at a iPhone every 20 seconds, or to turn off a cell phone, and to ban such devices
at meetings. He adds that sleeping less to do more is a bad strategy, since we are
efficient only when we sleep enough, eat right and exercise.
13.
So the next time the phone rings and a good friend is on the line, try this trick:
Sit on the couch. Focus on the conversation. Don't jump up, no matter how much you
feel the need to clean the kitchen. It seems weird, but go for it! You, too, can learn the
art of single-tasking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/25/business/yourmoney/25shortcuts.html?_r=1
I.
Comprehension Questions
1. Paragraphs 1 – 2
a. Give one example of multitasking as a “natural part of daily life” (Para. 2).
____________________________________________________
b. According to psychiatrists, psychologists and neuroscientists, what can lower
our efficiency?
_________________ (ONE WORD)
2. What is contradictory about multitasking?
Complete the following sentence.
While it can be _____________, in fact, you ___________________________.
3. (a) According to Paragraph 4, what is a positive result of listening to music while
working?
______________________________________________________________
(b) Why does this positive result occur?
______________________________________________________________
3. List the behavioral dissimilarities between talking on the phone in the past and at
present.
In the past people would be
At present talking on the phone allows
_______________________
_________________________________
________________________
_________________________________
________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
4. Paragraph 6
The brain switches attention and controls all our multitasking activities in the
same way.
True / False (circle one word)
Quote from the text to support your answer.
_____________________________________________________________
5. Paragraphs 7 – 8
Why does the author mention the results of the experiment carried out by RAC?
Complete the sentence. (ONE WORD in each space)
They prove how dangerous it is to ________________ and ______________.
6. Paragraph 9
a. Which way “doesn’t the real world work”?
We don’t ___________________________________
b. Which way does it work? (Be general, not specific – Do not give examples!)
_________________________________________________
7. a. What are the findings from the study ”The Cost of Interrupted Work”?
1.___________________________________________________
2.___________________________________________________
b. What is a possible reason for these findings?
_____________________________________________________
8. According to Dr. Hallowell, what is the difference between “attention deficit trait”
and “attention deficit disorder”?
Circle the correct words in the following sentence:
While the former is biological / social, the latter is biological / social.
9. What does the author recommend in order to stay focused on a telephone
conversation?
Put a check (V) next to the TWO correct answers.
____ having a meal
____ sitting comfortably
____ sitting motionlessly
____ running on a treadmill (‫)הליכון כושר‬
10. What is the author’s main purpose in writing this article?
a. to teach us how to make multitasking fun and energizing
b. to teach us simultaneous text - messaging and driving
c. to warn of the negative aspects of multitasking
d. to explain multitasking from a scientific point of view
I. Vocabulary
Study the following words as they appear in each paragraph:
Paragraph 2
succession
efficient
Paragraph 9
constantly
interrupt
Paragraph 4
cognitive
distract
Paragraph 10
frustration
Paragraph 11
entirely
capacity
Paragraph 5
initially
create
occasional
Paragraph 12
ban
reconstruct
Paragraph 6
figure out
Exercise 1
Match the words in Column A with their synonyms or definitions in Column B
1. succession ___
a. ability
2. efficient
___
b. understand
3. cognitive
___
c.
4. capacity
___
d. thinking
5 figure out
___
one thing after another
e. effective
Exercise 2
Match the words in Column A with their antonyms or definitions to Column B
1. distract
___
a. allow
2. occasional
___
b. finally
3. ban
___
c. constant
4. initially
___
d. destroy
5. create
___
e. attract
Exercise 3
Fill in the blanks in the following sentences with the words from the word bank.
interrupt
constantly
entirely
reconstruct
frustration
1. The Cohen brothers are ______________ different both in appearance and in
character.
2. Nobody likes people who are ______________ complaining.
3. All our efforts to solve the problem ended in ______________.
4. Wars _______________ trade and communication between countries.
5. The ____________ed Habima theatre looks terrific!