Alina Tugend Multitasking

972 Words4 Pages
“Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus” Discuss Alina Tugend is a columnist for the New York Times. Her work has also been shown in the Los Angeles Times, the American Journalism Review, and the Saturday Evening Post. In one of her reports in 2008, she writes about multitasking and the disadvantages it brings. There are a few advantages to multitasking. For example, it may be beneficial to listen to music while doing something such as writing an essay. Music may open up your creative flow, and actually allow you to write a better paper. However, the majority of the effects of multitasking have a negative impact. Studies done by psychologists and neuroscientists show that multitasking will make a person less effective at each individual task. Consider this common situation; if a person is watching the television, surfing the internet, listening to music, and texting, their focus is being pulled in many directions at the same time. The images on the television will catch their attention, so they stop what they are doing on the computer. They can’t hear clearly what is being played on the television, because the radio is on simultaneously. This individual then gets up to turn down the radio, and while they are up, they receive a text message. They aren’t aware of this because there were too many things going on at once, so the conversation is unknowingly ended. People cannot do more than one task at the same time. What they believe is multitasking is actually switching back and forth between tasks. Everyone has experienced talking on the phone with someone, and while talking with them, they suddenly become disengaged. Dr. Hallowell calls this “e-mail voice” (654). He also says “you cannot divide your attention like that. It’s a big illusion. You can shift back and forth” (654). Computers were the start of the age of multitasking. With computers

More about Alina Tugend Multitasking

Open Document