While many people say multitasking makes them productive, research shows, however, in the contrary.
Scientists say that people with multitasking to attend to experienced more stress, have trouble of concentrating and more than ever confining themselves to irrelevant information.
Scientists further discovered that even multitasking activities end, fragmented thinking and lack of focus persist. It is like your brain off computer that you need to defragmentized, connect and devoid them from error.
“The technology is rewiring our brains,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of world’s leading brain scientist.
She and other researchers made a comparison that technology is not as much enticing to drugs, alcohol and food which are essentials to our needs but it will not do to us good if it is taken in excess.
According to researchers, technology can benefit us in some ways, that people using the web become efficient at finding information and develop their visual sharpness in video games they play. The consumption of media and technology from computer web to TV broadcast have eaten a lot of our time.
Scientists at first thought that the brain stopped developing after childhood but now they understand that it is the neural network that is continuing to develop like learning skills.
Tests had shown that the brain could barely process two streams and could not simultaneously make decisions about them. It was thought that during the process that multitaskers might be rewiring themselves to handle the load, but it is not.
In a test conducted to determine focus and filtering out of information between multi taskers and non multi taskers, the following interesting results have surfaced:
*** Multi-taskers had trouble in filtering out irrelevant information than non multitaskers.
*** Multi taskers took longer than non multi taskers to differentiate things like vowel from consonant and even from odd number. In short multi-taskers are less efficient at juggling problems.
*** Multi taskers tended to search for new information rather than accept a reward for putting older , more valuable information to work. Researchers noted that multi taskers seem more sensitive than to non multi-taskers to incoming information.
In our world today, the chime of an incoming email and the urge to surf on the web can override the goal of writing a business plan or playing catch with the children. With the manifestation, one can see the lingering effects of multitasking even though one is not doing it.
One can experience change in priorities due to the distraction that has set in, that scientists among themselves have an active discussion over, whether technology influences one’s behavior or brain, bad or good and how significant it is?