We all have one-track minds

As a person who can only do one thing at a time (if that), all I have to say is: HA!

BBC | Multitaskers bad at multitasking

The people who engage in media “multitasking” are those least able to do so well, according to researchers.

A survey defined two groups: those who routinely consumed [Ed. note: “consumed”?] multiple media such as internet, television and mobile phones, and those who did not.

In a series of three classic psychology tests for attention and memory, the “low multitaskers” consistently outdid their highly multitasking counterparts.

The results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. …

“If you look at classical psychology textbooks, people cannot multitask – but if you walk around on the street, you see lots of people multitasking,” [Cliff Nass] told BBC News.

“So we asked ourselves the question, ‘what is it that these multitaskers are good at that enables them to do this?'” …

[In tests of the ability to ignore irrelevant information, organize working memory, and ability to switch tasks,] “the shocking discovery of this research is that [high multitaskers] are lousy at everything that’s necessary for multitasking,” Professor Nass said.

“The irony here is that when you ask the low multitaskers, they all think they’re much worse at multitasking and the high multitaskers think they’re gifted at it.”

The pressing question that remains, Professor Nass said, is one of cause and effect: are those people with a dearth of multitasking skills drawn to multitasking lifestyles, or do the lifestyles dull the skills?

Academics always make everything so difficult. The answer is obvious: it’s the well-known, pathetically consistent, Dunning-Kruger Effect.

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