The concept was borrowed from computer science and it means the ability of a system to track several programs at the same time, but some people define it as the “continuous partial attention syndrome caused by multiple use of digital technologies.” Simply put, schizoid tendency of modern man completely immersed in the technology ecosystem, which tracks and manages several communication tools, overwhelmed under the enormous amount of data, information and incentives.
Ultimately, more or less and each in his own way, all of us practice a form of multitasking; just that those convinced that this represents an indicator of efficiency will have to change their mind.
Studies done in recent years by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and some experiments conducted by Michigan University and the Federal Aviation Administration showed that it is very difficult to do two or more activities simultaneously because the brain only takes into consideration a second task it must perform after it has already solved the first task, and it does that by moving its attention from the first task to the second one, then the third one and so on and this has negative implications on one’s professional performances. And if multitasking involves a capacity to analyze information faster and more flexibly, the multitasking person is paying a price: he inhibits the long-term memory formation processes.
Multitasking is “just like playing tennis with three balls”, the American psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell considered. In other words, the super brain activity to which we submit our brain is truly remarkable, but so are the harmful effects we risk to suffer because shifting our attention from one task to another brings prejudices to focusing our attention and perception, learning abilities and acquiring advanced knowledge, reduces our intellectual performance, reduces productivity, and it generally has negative repercussions on the level of stress we experience and on our mood.
Also, although many activities carried out simultaneously create the illusion that you can do many things at the same time, that does not necessarily mean you won in terms of time. The theory of multitasking is futile and impossible for the simple fact that in nature there is no brain yet able to perform several activities simultaneously, with maximum results and more importantly, without stress.
The Off-Line Disease
“The multitasking generation”: that is how people born after the 90’s were called; they seem to be somehow endowed with the innate ability to perform several activities simultaneously, by means of an increasing number of environments and languages.
There might be some adults alarmed about the future of their children, but the reality is that the latter do not worry. On the contrary. Most of them say that they feel at ease using several technologies at once and this allows them to easier perform all their duties (homework) in less time. After all, why read the long chapters in a book when you can “synthesize” all the information in one simple click?
American psychologists talk about a new “epidemic” among teenagers, a disease which burns their brains and they have called it the “off-line disease”: get control over a simple internet network, crash the Internet in the neighborhood and this is enough for those connected to fall prey to panic attacks, insomnia, headaches and stomach. Symptoms mostly disappeared with the restoration of connection.
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