It's all part of life in the modern world, right? Multitasking, we all like to think, comes as naturally as Irish-ing up our coffee on casual Mondays and Tuesdays. Science says you're wrong.
Reputable neuroscientists claim that, for the most part, multitasking is physically impossible. Instead, the brain is able to switch its focus between separate processes really fast. Multitaskers are not saving time by doing multiple tasks at once. They're just segmenting the workload and making it harder to concentrate on any one task enough to actually get it done correctly.
Things get even worse once he adds "drinking" to the queue.
In fact, researchers at Stanford University have found that the more we multitask, the worse we are at it. When tested on memory, ability to switch tasks and ability to focus exclusively on one task, heavy multitaskers (that is, people who reported that they routinely used multiple media at once) scored worse across the board. While non-multitaskers were able to switch their focus completely between tasks, the experienced multitaskers were not able to stop thinking about the other activities while focusing on the job at hand.
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