Multitasking
From "The Autumn of the Multitaskers" by Walter Kirn, The Atlantic Monthly, November 2007
It isn’t working, it never has worked, and though we’re still pushing and driving to make it work and puzzled as to why we haven’t stopped yet, which makes us think we may go on forever, the stoppage or slowdown is coming nonetheless, and when it does, we’ll be startled for a moment, and then we’ll acknowledge that, way down deep inside ourselves (a place that we almost forgot even existed), we always knew it couldn’t work.
Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires—the constant switching and pivoting—energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we’re supposed to be concentrating on.
For more on Walter Kirn:
- The Unbinding, his serial novel on Slate.
- KCRW Bookworm interview, Michael Silverblatt (03/23/06) discussing Mission to America
- Random House Bold Type interview, Larry Weissman