The Myth of Multitasking

Your phone is destroying your most precious resource: attention

Your phone is stealing from you. It’s stealing from me, too. A digital void competes for our attention, stealing our presence from the physical space and people around us. Our attention is constantly divided, whether by the act of scrolling itself, or by the anxiety of notifications. We hear a “ding” or feel our phone buzz, and our brain is flooded with questions: Who is messaging me? What do they want? How many likes does my post have? Everything feels urgent, except our presence in the here and now. But in order to learn, you must be present. The growth of learning is uncomfortable, and you cannot escape it with the pacifier of an algorithmically personalized dopamine drip-feed. Critical thinking and deep conversations require your full attention and effort; you cannot be on your phone AND learn. 

Our brains are wired to focus on one task at a time. What we call multitasking is actually “task-switching”: doing individual actions in rapid succession. The more complex these tasks are, the less efficient we become. This is because of “switch cost”: a reduction in performance accuracy or speed, caused by competing sources of information that interfere with the attention and control networks of your brain. Studies have found that individuals almost always take longer to complete a task and do so with more errors when switching between tasks compared with staying with one task. Even using your phone to listen to music while reading or writing takes up mental space that your brain could be using to engage with the learning activity itself. Using your phone during a conversation robs you and your conversational partners of the gift of your attention.

Recently, a friend of mine told me: “Learning is attention directed at transcendence.” He’s been a high school ELA teacher for the past 15 years, so I took his definition seriously. I understood his statement to mean that learning requires you to be fully present in the effort to grow beyond your current limitations. Critical thinking and deep conversations are the cornerstones of this effort. These two skills are complementary. Research has shown that social interactions are a major catalyst for the human ability to acquire and retain new information across our lifespan. We think critically about our ideas so that we can contribute to a conversation, and the conversation drives us to think more deeply about ours and others’ ideas. This can be an uncomfortable process. We are forced to confront questions we don’t have answers to. We are thrust into the uncertain, the only place from which we can grow. To have a great conversation we need to be vulnerable; we share our uncertainties, we strive to articulate complex thoughts, and we ask questions that we know could lead to judgement. We listen attentively to others’ answers. We devote our full presence to reflecting on their ideas, and we form new ideas as we make connections between their understanding and our own. Often, our most brilliant insights come when we allow ourselves to sit in the uncomfortability of uncertainty. So long as we do not distract ourselves, so long as our attention remains focused on the questions that confront us, transcendence is possible. 

When we allow our phones to distract us, we damage our ability to direct our attention at transcendence. One study by Michigan State University found that even the buzzing of a phone has a major impact on task accuracy; in a study of 300 participants, a 3-second interruption doubled individuals’ error rate. Phone notifications activate your amygdala, which releases cortisol and creates a stress response in your body. This interferes with your memory consolidation, making it harder to learn and recall information.  In addition, your prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain responsible for focus and decision-making), struggles when forced to switch tasks. Even a quick glance at a notification leaves “attentional residue”, meaning part of your mind is still distracted for up to 23 minutes after the interruption. We live in an attention economy, where your attention is a precious resource that digital platforms and advertisers are competing to capture, manipulate, and monetize. We are fighting a war for our own attention. Every time we are distracted by a notification that feels impossible to ignore, or we choose to avoid the discomfort of dealing with a difficult task by “taking a break”, our phones win a battle.

You may have lost a few battles, but it is never too late to start making the difficult choices you need to make in order to win the war. There are two that I recommend. First, turn off your notifications. This makes it easier to tune out the outside world. Second, choose to focus your full attention on the task at hand, even if it feels boring. Dr. Cynthia Kubu, a neuropsychologist, says multitasking causes us to “slowly lose our ability to focus enough to learn” because “we don’t practice tuning out the rest of the world to engage in deeper processing and learning.” To practice focusing, stop engaging in “media multitasking” (like scrolling through social media while watching a movie, or listening to music while reading or writing). Studies have shown that people who frequently engage in media multitasking are more distracted and less able to focus their attention even when they’re performing only one task. This means that using your phone while you are doing something else trains your brain to be less focused – even when you aren’t using your phone. This is true for any form of discipline. Every time you tell yourself it’s okay to make the easy choice, making the hard choice next time becomes increasingly difficult. We are responsible for choosing how we direct our attention. The path to transcendence requires effort, and effort is uncomfortable – but I would rather make the difficult choice now and stand on top of the mountain later, than spend my life glancing back and forth between my phone and the top of a mountain that feels increasingly out of reach. 

Works Cited

“Attention Residue.” *Monitask Business Glossary*, Monitask, https://www.monitask.com/en/business-glossary/attention-residue.

“Science Is Clear: Multitasking Doesn’t Work.” *Cleveland Clinic Health Essentials*, Cleveland Clinic, https://health.clevelandclinic.org/science-clear-multitasking-doesnt-work.

“Notifications and Focus: What Happens in the Brain?” *The Brainer Academy*, https://thebraineracademy.com/notifications-focus-brain/.

“Skilled Workers More Prone to Mistakes When Interrupted.” *MSU Today*, Michigan State University, 22 Mar. 2017, https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/03/skilled-workers-more-prone-to-mistakes-when-interrupted.

Rosen, Christine. “The Myth of Multitasking.” *National Library of Medicine*,  2020, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7075496/.

Zheng, Xinyu, et al. “Effects of Smartphone Use on Cognitive Performance.” *National Library of Medicine*, 2022, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9791495/.