Instead of doing two things at once, in most situations, people who believe they are multitasking are actually task switching , or moving back and forth between the two tasks rapidly.
What Is Multitasking?
- Working on two or more tasks simultaneously.
- Switching back and forth from one thing to another.
- Performing a number of tasks in rapid succession.
Multitasking (attempting to do two or more tasks simultaneously)
Context switching (switching back and forth between tasks)
Attention residue (performing a number of tasks in rapid succession)
Explanation
Context switching: What happens each time you bounce between tasks?
- Our brains can’t do two things at once. They’re simply not wired to do so. Instead, what we think of as “multitasking” is really just bouncing back and forth between tasks very quickly.
- But all this context switching takes its toll. We can shift our focus really fast—sometimes it takes just a 10th of a second.
- However, the time doesn’t matter as much as the bandwidth required to jump from one task to another and back again.
- In fact, research has found that every additional task or tool you “switch” to eats up 20% of your productivity!
Yet despite all the consequences, most of us spend all day switching between tasks. One small study found workers switched tasks every 3 minutes.
Learn more about Multitasking on:
brainly.com/question/12977989
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