The Myth of Multitasking

1. Multitasking is considered by many psychologists to be a myth because there is no such thing as "multitasking", but people think they can multitask and the truth is that they are only changing from doing one thing to another really fast.
2. Marois found evidence of a “response selection bottleneck” that occurs when the brain is forced to respond to several stimuli at once. As a result, task-switching leads to time lost as the brain determines which task to perform.
3. Meyer is optimistic that, with training, the brain can learn to task-switch more effectively, and there is some evidence that certain simple tasks are amenable to such practice. But his research has also found that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline, which can cause long-term health problems if not controlled, and contributes to the loss of short-term memory.
4. Russell Podrack found that “multitasking adversely" affects how you learn.
5. If, as Poldrack concluded, “multitasking changes the way people learn,” what might this mean for today’s children and teens, raised with an excess of new entertainment and educational technology, and avidly multitasking at a young age? Poldrack calls this the “million-dollar question.”

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking