If your idea of multitasking is watching a football game on television while texting your friends on your smartphone and checking email on your tablet, you’re not alone. In today’s technology-driven world, multitasking is an integral and necessary part of life. But are you really getting anything done effectively when you try to do many things at once? New research from Wharton marketing professor Rom Schrift and doctoral student Shalena Srna shows that multitasking is a mere illusion because it is impossible to execute more than one task at a time. Nevertheless, the perception of multitasking seems to be beneficial to performance. Schrift and Srna, who authored the paper, “The Illusion of Multitasking and Its Positive Effect on Performance,” with Yale marketing professor Gal Zauberman, shared their observations with Knowledge@Wharton.
An edited transcript of the conversation follows.
Knowledge@Wharton: What was the inspiration for this research?
Rom Schrift: The thing that ignited our interest in studying this topic was the apparent contrast between how people generally define multitasking and how they actually engage in it. Specifically, although multitasking is generally defined as engaging in multiple tasks concurrently, previous research has repeatedly demonstrated that humans do not actually attend to multiple tasks at the same time. That is, when we think we multitask, we actually switch rapidly back and forth between tasks and do not attend to more than a single task at a time. This means that multitasking is often nothing more than a perception or even an illusion.
Shalena Srna: In many instances, people can perceive the exact same activity as either multitasking or single-tasking. For example, when I am in a meeting, I might perceive my activity to be a single task, but I am actually both listening to Rom and taking notes. When I shop at a store and look up sales information on my phone, am I engaging in single-tasking or multitasking? Am I just shopping or am I simultaneously browsing the clothes racks and finding deals online? These situations ignited our interest in the malleability of multitasking perceptions and how the mere illusion of multitasking might impact enjoyment, engagement and performance on the tasks.
“Multitasking is often nothing more than a perception or even an illusion.”–Rom Schrift
Knowledge@Wharton: The research notes that most people have a positive view of multitasking, but many studies have shown that multitasking isn’t usually the most efficient way to get things done. What challenges does that create in helping people become more productive?
Srna: Indeed, we find that people would like to be perceived as adept multitaskers and believe they are actually good at it. In a sample representative of the U.S. population, 93% of respondents indicated they could multitask better or as well as the average person. Given that many studies had documented that multitasking is detrimental to performance, this could potentially pose a problem as people may not be aware of the extent to which multitasking can hinder their performance on many tasks. However, our results suggest that given that a person engages in some form of multitasking, acknowledging that they are indeed multitasking could at least help mitigate the detrimental consequences of multitasking.
Knowledge@Wharton: What were the most surprising findings of this study?
Schrift: The most surprising finding of this study is that, first, multitasking is often a matter of perception. That is, individuals can perceive the same activity as either multitasking or single-tasking depending on the context. For example, imagine that you are watching two live football games on the sports channel and both games are broadcasted simultaneously on a split screen. Will you consider this activity as multitasking or single-tasking? Will thinking about your activity more broadly as “watching sports” or more specifically as “watching two live games” change your perception? If you watch one game on TV and the other on your iPad simultaneously, does that change whether or not you perceive yourself as multitasking or single-tasking? Indeed, we find that these and many other factors change our multitasking perceptions and have important consequences for our engagement and attentiveness.
Srna: The second surprising finding is that, although engaging in multiple activities is harmful to performance compared with engaging in a single task, the mere perception of multitasking is beneficial to performance. That is, holding constant the activity that individuals actually engage in, making such activity feel like multitasking improves both persistence and performance on the task.
“We find that people would like to be perceived as adept multitaskers and believe they are actually good at it.”–Shalena Srna
Knowledge@Wharton: What is the key takeaway of this study?
Schrift: Although previous literature found that engaging in multiple tasks may diminish performance, we find that, holding the activity constant, the mere perception of multitasking actually increases engagement with the task and improves performance. Thus, regardless of whether or not people engage in a single or multiple tasks, making individuals perceive this activity as multitasking is beneficial to performance.
Knowledge@Wharton: What implications does this paper have for managers? Does it bring to light any techniques managers should be using to get the most productivity out of their employees?
Srna: This work has a number of managerial implications. Many jobs require people to engage in multiple tasks concurrently. The extent to which people feel like they are multitasking may help them attend more to the activity at hand.
Schrift: Because almost any task may be decomposed to its smaller, more basic components, managers may find it useful to highlight the multitasking nature of the activity. For example, in one of the studies we asked people to transcribe a certain video clip. Most people perceive such an activity — transcribing — as a single task. However, for one of the groups we made it salient to individuals that transcribing involves two tasks that should be done concurrently, namely, listening and typing at the same time. What we find is that individuals in this group, who perceived the activity as multitasking, performed better on the task (i.e., typed more words) and also on a follow-up task that tested their comprehension of what they typed.
Knowledge@Wharton: What sets this research apart from other analysis conducted on the topic?
Schrift: To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to examine the malleability of multitasking perceptions as well as how these perceptions impact performance. While other analyses conducted on this topic examined how asking individuals to do more hurts performance, we hold the activity constant and focus on the mere effect of multitasking perceptions.
“Individuals can perceive the same activity as either multitasking or single-tasking depending on the context.”–Rom Schrift
Knowledge@Wharton: How do you plan to follow up this research?
Srna: We are currently in the process of examining a number of areas related to this research. First, we are examining when people choose to multitask and how this informs their preference for products that enable them to multitask (like an iPad). We are also examining people’s preference for products that do things simultaneously (e.g., face wash that simultaneously cleans and moisturizes your face). Finally, we are exploring people’s enjoyment and engagement with advertising and media when they perceive the activity they are engaging in as multitasking versus single-tasking.
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Anumakonda Jagadeesh
Excellent.
Human multitasking is an apparent human ability to perform more than one task, or activity, over a short period (1 hour). An example of multitasking is taking phone calls while typing an email and reading a book. Multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching and apparently causing more errors due to insufficient attention. Studies have shown that it is impossible to focus on more than one task at a time. However, if one is proficient at one of the tasks at hand, then it is possible to do these tasks.
The first published use of the word “multitask” appeared in an IBM paper describing the capabilities of the IBM System/360 in 1965. The term has since been applied to human tasks.
Since the 1960s, psychologists have conducted experiments on the nature and limits of human multitasking. The simplest experimental design used to investigate human multitasking is the so-called psychological refractory period effect. Here, people are asked to make separate responses to each of two stimuli presented close together in time. An extremely general finding is a slowing in responses to the second-appearing stimulus.
Researchers have long suggested that there appears to be a processing bottleneck preventing the brain from working on certain key aspects of both tasks at the same time (e.g., (Gladstones, Regan & Lee 1989) (Pashler 1994)). Many researchers believe that the cognitive function subject to the most severe form of bottlenecking is the planning of actions and retrieval of information from memory. Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell has gone so far as to describe multitasking as a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously as effectively as one.” On the other hand, there is good evidence that people can monitor many perceptual streams at the same time, and carry out perceptual and motor functions at the same timeOthers have researched multitasking in specific domains, such as learning. Mayer and Moreno studied the phenomenon of cognitive load in multimedia learning and concluded that it is difficult, if not impossible, to learn new information while engaging in multitasking. Junco and Cotten examined how multitasking affects academic success and found that students who engaged in high levels of multitasking reported significant issues with their academic work. A more recent study on the effects of multitasking on academic performance found that using Facebook and text messaging while studying were negatively related to student grades, while online searching and emailing were not(Wikipedia)..
What is Multitasking?
Multitasking entails juggling different work activities and shifting attention from one task to another.
Ideally, an employee will be able to meet the demands of several different stakeholders without dropping the ball. The danger in multitasking is that effectiveness can be compromised if the worker tries to carry out too many tasks at the same time.
Examples of Multitasking Skills Used in Various Professions
• Answering the phone while greeting visitors in a busy reception area
• Carrying out work on three different graphic design projects at varying stages of completion
• Completing five different meal orders at the same time
• Designing a new website while updating other sites
• Disciplining a student who is acting out while teaching a lesson
• Driving a bus while quieting a verbally abusive passenger
• Fielding calls from distressed investors while managing portfolios during a downturn in the market
• Managing several social media accounts while working on email marketing tasks
• Monitoring air traffic patterns and directing aircraft
• Polishing a press release while finalizing the details for a promotional event
• Preparing a lecture, generating a grant proposal, interacting with advisees who drop in, and providing input to a committee chair
• Preparing a sales presentation while fielding a complaint from another customer
• Prioritizing complaints in a customer service office
• Processing closing documents for a variety of real estate deals
• Processing insurance paperwork, scheduling appointments, greeting patients, and answering the phone in a dental office
• Refining computer programs while responding to the needs of in-house users
• Responding to the call button from patients while recording case notes
• Revising the performance review process while answering employee questions about benefits
• Scheduling workers while managing their job responsibilities
• Serving drinks, finalizing checks, taking orders, and delivering food while it is still hot to restaurant patrons
• Triaging patients in the emergency room
• Writing a performance appraisal while fielding a call from the boss and finding a replacement for an absent worker
• Writing a proposal for a remodeling job while scheduling subcontractors
How to Demonstrate Your Multitasking Skills
If a job announcement you are interested in specifically says that the ideal candidate for the position must have strong multitasking skills, then it’s a good idea to sit down before your interview and list instances where you have had to multitask either in your previous jobs or, if you are a recent college graduate, as part of your coursework.
Once you have two or three examples you know that you can elaborate upon, you’ll be more than prepared to show (as opposed to simply telling) your interviews that you’re the multitasking rock star they’re seeking(Multitasking Skills List and Examples,the balance, Alison Doyle, June 09, 2017).
Here is an interesting article on the subject:
“Law One: Some tasks mix well.
Law Two: Some tasks mix poorly.
Law Three: It’s partly about switching costs.
Law Four: It’s partly about resource conflict.
Law Five: It’s partly about sweetening the pot.
Law Six: It’s partly about setting picks.
Law Seven: It’s all about making trade-offs.
Conclusion: some specific and useful strategies.
We’ve covered a lot of ground. Here are the key lessons in a nutshell:
We’ve seen that multitasking can be a bad idea when:
• there are high switching costs
• there is resource conflict between task A and task B
And we’ve seen that it can be a good idea when:
• task B “sweetens the pot” for task A
• task B can “set a pick” for task A
And we’ve seen that the wisdom of multitasking can also depend on other features of task A and task B:
• how important it is to do them well
• how familiar they are
• how important it is to do them quickly
• how motivated we are to do them
• how complicated they are
Let’s finish with a few specific and useful ways to apply these lessons:
1. Multitasking can be dangerous. When it’s important to do task A well, we should be very careful about choosing a task B, and err on the side of caution. We should never text and drive, or talk on the phone while driving. And we should take steps to make sure our passengers will not distract us with rowdiness or emotionally challenging conversations (this is of special relevance for those of us with children).
2. Multitasking can hinder creative productivity. When working on a creative project that pushes us to the limits of our concentration, we should not multitask in ways that will expose us to interruptions of the primary activity (for example, while writing an essay, we should close our facebook, twitter, and email clients, and check them only after we’ve done a good chunk of creative work).
3. Multitasking can assist creative productivity. Well-chosen secondary tasks can set picks for our creative projects, and can help us maintain focus against background processes that might otherwise interrupt us (for instance while writing an essay in a coffee shop, we might listen to invigorating instrumental music to block out ambient noises, conversations, and internal signals of discomfort).
4. Multitasking can help us be more patient. We tend to grow impatient when we have a goal and we have just learned that it’s going to cost us more to reach our goal than we originally thought. And our tendency when we are impatient is to either try to find shortcuts or to abandon our goal for another goal. But sometimes the right course of action is to simply stay the course and absorb the extra costs. The right task B can both sweeten the pot, and set picks on those voices in our heads trying to get us to change course. For instance, we might talk with a stranger while waiting in line, so we don’t bolt, or listen to an audiobook while stuck in heavy traffic, so we don’t plot out risky and minimally productive lane-changing maneuvers (For more on impatience, see “The 7 Laws of Impatience”).
Well-chosen music mixes with almost everything. Well-chosen music has a magical ability to both sweeten the pot and set picks for almost any activity — while avoiding resource conflict and switching costs almost entirely. The music must be chosen carefully, so it does not provide resource conflict (for instance songs with lyrics might not be optimal for reading, and death metal might be a poor choice formeditation). But there is usually a good choice for almost any activity. Some tasks might not mix well with any kind of music, but these will probably be rare for most people.” (The 7 Laws of Multitasking :The two main hazards (and two main benefits) of multitasking.
Dec 16, 2014 Jim Stone Psychology Today)
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India