Job Advertisement: “Must be good at multitasking.”

Obviously the company that posted the above ad is not up-to-date on current research which shows that no one is good at multitasking. Now I realize that you are probably disagreeing with me right now, since you multitask throughout the day, but reality is that our brains are not good at executing demands to perform multiple activities simultaneously.

What actually occurs is a mental traffic jam where eventually one item breaks through, followed close behind by a second, and then a third. They may be so close together that it seems simultaneous, but in actuality one precedes the next.

When MIT students were given two simple tasks to perform at the same time, identifying shapes and letters or colors, they could not do it and lost their composure. Once they were allowed to switch back and forth, they could do it, but it was very slow because they were forcing their brains to fire in different directions so quickly.

This mental traffic jam is causing stress as we pump adrenaline throughout the day. Over an extended period, there are both short-term (absentmindedness, since we are not focused) and long-term results (brain damage in our prefrontal cortex and hippocampus). Those two brain regions are associated with short-term memory and the abilities to assess and prioritize. The extended stress also ends up causing physical illness (80% of sickness according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).

It can appear that teens and even younger children may have a better ability to multitask. Again, reality is that they are not better at it, they just have more practice. If you must multitask, be sure that one of the two things you want to do can be done without any thought, like running and listening to your iPod.