Saturday, May 18, 2013

Is Multi-Tasking Dangerous, or Is It Just Me?

Dateline-San Diego-Saturday, May 18, 2013

So here I am in a San Diego condo, watching the morning news while my wife is dressing. Husbands with tenure in the institution of marriage will recognize this state of affairs. On a long weekend trip, battling for a precious few moments in the single bathroom, then dressing. Badda-bing, badda-boom! We're done. The wife, not yet ready. Not for a long while.  

Gentlemen, assume your position. That position being on the edge of the hotel bed (or my case, the condo couch), watching TV news to distract us from our real thoughts. Ladies, you don't wanna know what our real thoughts are. OK, that's misleading, you know we're only thinking, "Hurry up, already!" We're quite simple creatures, really.

Now, back to the morning news...Talking Head is interviewing Doctor So-and-So about the dangers of multi-tasking. Generally speaking, we're talking about doing several things at once. The mellow doctor from Scripps Institute thinks this is a bad idea. Do I really need to tell you that Dr. So-and-So is a male doctor? He believes that trying to do two or more things at the same time is unhealthily stressful and inefficient; we are training ourselves to do less than our best at any one task, for the sake of ticking off our to-do lists. We trumpet our juggling acumen at the expense of qualitative output.

"We're becoming, like, 'Jacks-of-all-trades' then?" said Talking Head.

"And masters of none. Exactly," said Doctor.

Well, I could've told you that! But the wife would disagree. She has been known to characterize my technical expertise with electronic devices as "challenged" while mumbling something about the inability of males to multi-task.  Au contraire, mon frere. I had this argument in business school a gazillion years ago. (Gazillion is a technical term for "I'm not tellin' cuz I don't want to admit how long ago it was." It's common parlance among MBA candidates at The George Washington University and aficionados of Saturday morning cartoons).

Way back then, we called it "polyphasic behavior." Dr. So-and-So actually used that term; he said that the terminology evolved in the Nineties (okay, you can do the math--I was in grad school in the Eighties). My Eighties-era professor, Dr. Andersen, introduced us to the concept with almost as much disdain as he held for GWU students; He was a visiting professor from Stanford, after all. Which I believe he told us four times in the first five minutes of class (not that he was condescending or anything). Back then, Dr. Andersen made the similar case about the increase in stress and the decrease in quality of our work as a society.

I could see that, Ms. Multi-Tasker. I could see that talking on your cell phone while applying make up in the rear view mirror as you're driving to work in rush hour traffic has hazardous potential. Forget about my car bumper for just a second--do you really want people at the office to think you applied your mascara with a trowel? I'm just sayin'...

My quibble with Professor Stanford University was not that one's work (or driving) suffered from a shocking lack of proper attention; I argued that for some people, polyphasic behavior was a soothing, rather than stress-inducing activity.

I presented my case study (the was business school, remember?) JV was my long-time friend and roommate. The perfect end to his work day meant grabbing some Jack-in-the-Box on the way home from the bank. He would spread the day's San Francisco Chronicle out in the floor in front of the television, then place his fast food delicacies out on the unread classifieds. He proceeded to:
  1. Eat his Jumbo Jack, fries, apple pie and wash it down with a coke,
  2. while watching the evening news with total recall, and
  3. simultaneously reading the Chronicle with sterling comprehension (I quizzed him on occasion)
"Professor Andersen," I insisted, "JV found this nightly routine relaxing--not stressful at all." Many of my fellow students chimed in to support my position, to no avail. The erst-while Stanford professor did not appreciate my argument any more than I appreciated the "B" he gave me in that class.

This morning, Dr. So-and-So of Scripps Institute finished his TV discussion by pointing out that the evolution of the terminology from "polyphasic" to "multi-task" was in itself a cultural phenomenon attempting excusing the multi-tasking trend by focusing attention on the performance rather than the time, thus sounding more productive rather than less (which, he argued, it was). Take that, dear.

Nonetheless, my wife would point to the dad who promised his wife he'd watch the kids while she was out proves the point. "No problem, Honey," he'd said. "I can check my e-mail, text my boss, clean the kitchen, pop dinner in the oven and keep an eye on the kids. Don't worry, it's called multi-tasking!" What could possibly go wrong? 


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4 comments:

  1. When I took a Cognitive Psychology class a year or so ago, we had an assignment on multi-tasking. For the most part it was agreed that even though many people mulit-task, not many do it well.

    Personally, I don't multi-task well. I can do one thing at a time well, and two things half well. After that, I crumble.

    If I even try to talk on the phone and read email, something's gotta give. I'll forgot what the person said or have no idea what I just read.

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  2. Having had five children from ages 7 to infant I can say multitasking is a survival skill. But then when their teenagers and young adults you are programmed by that time to continue the high level of multi-manuevering (my term) and you realize you better slow down and focus on one thing at a time, because your tired of missing your turn off while driving.

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  3. Did you notice that there's a Chicken Soup callout for stories about multi-tasking moms? I'll bet there are some stories here. xoA

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  4. I always assume that I multitask well, but I'm sure I could do a better job if I was focusing on one thing at a time. I just can't get out of the horrible habit of continuing to do everything all at once.

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