Taking Multitasking to Task

“Stanford researchers found college students who use multiple forms of media all at once have more trouble determining what’s important and what’s not. ‘High multitaskers love to grab new information at the expense of carefully managing what they have’." (MSNBC)

“Heavy media multitaskers, says the study, are less able to filter out irrelevant information and are less able to organize useful or relevant information.” (CBC News)

Multitaskers are having trouble actually multitasking. But researchers at Stanford University still aren’t sure why that is.

Various media consumers admit multitasking saves time and helps productivity. Yet other consumers say utilizing multiple media at once is more distracting and that it’s better to do one thing at a time.

We’re looking at various media sources that show us first-hand experience of multitasking. First, Montreal’s CBC follows a local city council member who is a big fan of multitasking.

“Even as the TV plays and the phone rings, he can write an e-mail. In fact, Cohen believes all that technology makes him more productive. ‘Absolutely. I could not do what I was doing 20 years ago without technology. And the fact is I’m able to produce so much more and I’m able to take on more tasks’.”

But some bloggers are defensive about their multitasking tendencies. On the other hand, a blogger from Hastac.org sees technology as a negative.

“My skepticism about studies of multitasking arises from experiments in the science of self-distraction. We are in a moment of enormous technological change and…that means we see distraction everywhere.”

But a writer on Crunch Gear, a computer hardware blog, says it’s more draining to use multiple media all at once.

“I find that I have a horrid time, say, listening to music and reading. I can either focus on the words on the page (or screen) or the sounds coming out of the headphones. Otherwise, one detracts from my ability to understand the other."

And yet environmental blog Smart Planet says multitaskers actually work harder when doing multiple things simultaneously.

“Multitaskers don’t excel at anything. Simply put, media multitaskers couldn’t ignore anything. They were mired in noise. The lesson: try one thing at a time. Life is easier that way.”—Larry Dignan

So are you a multitasker? If so, how do you handle managing multiple media at once?