Can You Literally Be Addicted to Multitasking?
You know what it’s like. You sit down to write a report or create that presentation, and your phone beeps at you. Of course, the phone is much more exciting than the project you just started, so with the precision of a cowboy at a fast draw competition, you grab the phone, and in less than a second, you’re corresponding with someone in real-time. After finishing the conversation, you ask yourself, “Okay, where was I?”
After a minute or two of attempting to refocus, you set off to continue with your project. After a few minutes of jotting down a few thoughts, you hear the beep from your email. Again, Quick- Draw McGraw to the rescue. You’re feeling pretty good because you quickly responded to that important email and got some work done on that project. Or did you?
The truth is, the old 60s cartoon character Quick-Draw McGraw was not good with his gun, and you’re no better at multitasking.
Neuroscience has learned that the human brain cannot multitask.
In reality, we task switch, meaning we rapidly switch from one task to another, and when we do, our productivity decreases by as much as 40%, and we lose time – not gain it. And it gets worse. Research conducted at the Institute of Psychiatry revealed that workers distracted by incoming email and phone calls saw a 10-point fall in their IQ, which is worse than the impact of smoking marijuana. And to make matters worse, there’s evidence that task switching can cause permanent brain damage.
If you work with screens all day (and most of us do), have you ever noticed how physically drained you are by the end of the day, and yet you’ve not been physically active?
In an article titled “Multitasking Drains Your Mental Energy Reserves, Neuroscientists Reveal,” writer David Nield explains:
All that constant switching uses up oxygenated glucose in the brain, making us more tired and less able to take on the big tasks that need doing. The brain uses glucose to fuel all its cellular activities, and neurons can't store extra reserves – which means you don't want to run out, because doing so impedes neural communication. But despite being tired, we keep doing it anyway, because multitasking in itself becomes addictive.
So, what about the addiction portion of multitasking (task switching)? Scientists tell us that all of this juggling of phone calls, emails, etc., has the potential to change the way people think and behave. The incoming information provokes excitement, which results in a squirt of a potentially addictive neurotransmitter called dopamine. Thus, the more we task switch, the greater the risk of chemical addiction to dopamine.
Writing for the Guardian, behavioral neuroscientist Daniel Levitin said:
Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine-addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation.
As important as it is for a student to study correctly and an office worker to juggle projects as effectively as possible, the more significant issue is how we manage our devotional time with God. Switching tasks when we reserve to be with the Lord is a recipe for spiritual disaster.
So, what should we do? Psychologist Gloria Mark got it right when she said, “we should give up on multitasking completely and set aside dedicated slots of time for each task.”1
