From Wednesday night's PBS Newshour...
One wonders about this multitasking thing. The old joke used to be that women excel at it and men don't. I've seen some anecdotal evidence to support this theory and I know for a FACT that I'm largely incapable of multitasking. In my personal esperience I find that one thing or the other suffers and none of the tasks I'm trying to accomplish simultaneously ever come out well. So does this mean I have an old-fashioned 20th century brain? Is the new generation REALLY capable of working on several things at once? From the transcript of the above video:
MILES O'BRIEN: Neuroscientist Marcel Just is doing some groundbreaking research on the human brain at Carnegie Mellon University.
So, we pay a big penalty for doing more, two things at once?
MARCEL JUST: That's right. There's only so much brain capability at any one time, throughput. And you can divide it down as much as you want to, but the price will be even higher then.
MILES O'BRIEN: Like driving and talking on the phone. A few years ago, Just did a study on this. His conclusion? Even an idle conversation takes a 40 percent bite out of your brainpower. You might as well be drunk.
So, multitasking is not a myth, but efficient multitasking might be?
MARCEL JUST: Yes. Multitasking with no cost is a myth. I think there's no free lunch there.Suspicions confirmed, eh? "You might as well be drunk." Think about that the next time you take a phone call in traffic.
What do you mean "MIGHT AS WELL" be drunk, Buck? :) I resemble that remark!! Further, I represent it as well!! I don't do things half-way...."might as well" indeed!!
ReplyDeleteThing I Know #83. The nature of “multitasking” determines that those who do it, know far less about how well they’re doing it than those who watch.
ReplyDeleteI have a theory of the "politically incorrect, nobody says it out loud even though deep down we all know it's true" variety:
Wait, come back.
Anyway. Girls mature faster than boys in some ways, we like to pretend it's in ALL ways, but...common sense says boys must have the edge here & there to compensate, and they do. The male sex is superior when it comes to recalling the disadvantages involved in an option chosen, and recalling them at a later time when the same decision has to be made, handing it down impartially.
By that I mean: You make a choice. There are unanticipated drawbacks involved in this choice, revealed by subsequent experience...but it might, still, have been the right choice. Females tend to pre-judge and re-live the same exorbitant experience. My gf and I have a little joke that "kidzmom" cannot handle any one issue, no matter how trivial, without generating a MINIMUM of eight phone calls about it. And the gf, herself -- this morning I found a spider about the size of an orange in the garage. Like Blondie in the old Dagwood comic strip, immediately, it's "call them and have them spray." And I'm all, like, "I will buy a can on my way home, and I will spray." Somehow, doin'-it-yourself is immediately excluded as an option. Why would we do that? Oh, because when you call to have it done, it's...he didn't do it right, get him out here again...and again...and again...
Females do not remember an unpleasant/disatisfactory outcome, not vividly enough to factor it into the same decision next time. They're built that way. Why is that? Heh, it should be obvious...if they remembered the low-lights as well as us gentlemen, none of us would have brothers or sisters, we'd all be only-children. Every single one of us.
And because they have that inherent weakness, it pays off for them because they end up being far better at multi-tasking than we are.
Virgil: But NOT while driving, right? ;-)
ReplyDeleteMorgan: Thanks for that.
Not sure what's worse: My flattering prose about the Palinator, or these dreadfully chauvinistic outbursts. I'm kinda hoping the two cancel each other out.
ReplyDeleteThe juxtaposition of the two IS most amazing, Morgan. ;-)
ReplyDeleteIf women excel at multitasking, are we better drivers too?
ReplyDelete