The trouble with multitasking (and are women really better at it?)
By Barbara MahanyTribune staff reporterPublished October 30, 2005 - Chicago Tribune
Pick a house, any house. Peek in the kitchen window. Particularly at the bewitching hour, that jam-packed interlude after work and before dinner. This is what you might see:There appears to be a grown-up walking in small circles between counter and stove. Occasionally she darts into next room where little person is tossing cushions off couch, making mountain to jump in. Grown-up piles things from fridge onto counter. Puts pans on stove. Chops onions. Throws chicken in microwave. Older child walks in and asks question about math homework. Without putting down cleaver, grown-up glances at book, ponders, comes up with some thought.Grown-up, measuring rice into pot, grabs phone and cradles on neck, trying to reschedule orthodontist appointment. Leaves message. Dials another number, this time checks in on friend with sick mother. Little person darts into kitchen, wants cookies before dinner. Grown-up explains that dinner is coming, offers carrots in meantime. Grown-up hears cell phone ringing. Cradling both phones, grown-up gets report spouse is running late.Older child returns to kitchen, this time thrusting paper into grown-up's hand. Paper must be signed, as child is collecting sponsors for school charity walk. Doorbell rings. Grown-up masks craziness and calmly answers door.This is not fiction. This is my house. You might call it insanity (and mostly I do). But it is otherwise called multitasking, that modern-day malady that has us scrambling to cram as much into the moment as is humanly possible.While as a concept, making the most of our time has been around as long as humans have had two hands and tasks to occupy both, the term multitasking didn't enter the lexicon until 1966, born out of the capacity of computers to do two or more functions at once.Like all good ideas, it seemed a splendid solution to a world that demands ever more.But now there's a problem, said Stephanie Wilson, organizational guru and bestselling author of five books on the subject of whipping your life into some semblance of order. This pursuit of doing many things at once "has become inflamed, just like an appendix," Wilson said."It sits there minding its business until one day it gets inflamed and then it's sick, and suddenly you can't ignore it. Something like that has happened with the fundamental concept of efficiency. It has become inflamed to the point of creating chaos."You can't get too far into the subject of multitasking before someone starts yammering about its gender-specificity, proclaiming that women are naturals and men simply cannot keep more than one plate spinning.You talkin' to me?"Remember, we gals are born with all our eggs, which means we multitask from the start," argued Colby Beutel, an artist and mother of two on Chicago's Northwest Side. "Guys do their stuff one at a time. Interruptions are not digested, only ignored."Think of chess: The king moves one space at a time, thinking he's all powerful, while the queen can move in any direction she wants, and without her, the king is dead."Checkmate.And yet, despite howls of protest otherwise ("Male multitasker, isn't that an oxymoron," shouted one correspondent to a plea for nominations of men who multitask), the time has come to pop a long, sharp stickpin in the rumblings that somehow men are less than equal in the juggling department."I don't believe the functional data supports that," reported neuro-psychologist Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.He swatted away a 1998 study, done by scientists elsewhere, that he believes wrongly suggested that women might have the upper hand when it comes to multitasking.Just, who has spent years peering into the human mind through functional CAT scans that map brain activity during various cognitive tasks, reports that only when asked to listen to two things simultaneously do women demonstrate higher capacity to do so. In every other pairing of cognitive tasks, listening to a series of true-false statements while mentally twisting three-dimensional figures, for instance, men and women show equal capacities.And, he is quick to add, there is clearly a cap on our capacity to multitask, men or women."How much can you do at one time?" asks Just, who examined that question in a 2001 study. "It's a biological system, there have to be limits. You can't just go piling on thoughts."
In addition to the brain's biological constraints, Just's study, published in the journal NeuroImage, found that there's a limit to how much attention is available to distribute over more than one task and that there is a limit on how well concurrent tasks can be performed.In other words, if it feels as though the more you try to do, the more you're messing up, you might be on to something.Another pair of scientists, in this case social scientists, looked at multitasking through another lens and came up with a similar conclusion: Women don't beat men doing more than one thing at once. So report sociologists Barbara Schneider and Linda Waite, co-directors of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Working Families at the University of Chicago, who have spent plenty of time probing the multitasking question.No statistical differenceThe just-released findings of their research, titled The 500 Family Study, looked at those hundreds of families in 2000 and 2001. Most of them were dual-career couples with children.The results show women with only a slight edge over men in terms of how often they find themselves doing multiple things at once. Overall, women multitask 57 percent of the time; men, 50 percent of the time, which the researchers claim is not a statistically significant difference.At home, women multitask 43 percent of the time; men, 37 percent of the time. In the workplace, both men and women multitask much less, with no difference between sexes. And especially at work, Schneider and Waite found, multitasking creates feelings of stress and frustration."The bottom line, and it's very important," Schneider said, "basically when you're in the moment in your work, you get tremendous satisfaction. But our lives are so complicated, we multitask a lot of the time. When we're multitasking we don't feel so great about it. No one should feel like, `Oh, that person is multitasking, that person is so efficient; isn't that great?'"The truth is, it's not so great."Hmm, wonder if they peeked in my kitchen window.- - -Busy people can keep many plates spinningAnd you thought you multitasked. Some tales from the multitasking front:"The other night, my first full day back at school [as a kindergarten teacher] with students and parents I get home, check for messages while calling middle child on his cell phone to find out why he isn't here for his guitar lesson, find that I missed a doctor's appointment, jot down new time, throw chicken in microwave to defrost, send off youngest to find oldest so I can get into car for guitar, oops . . . didn't turn off iron from ironing skirt for the parent curriculum night tonight at 7, get home from guitar, finish notes for open house, put oldest child's hand-wash-only clothes (out of washer!) on hangers and clips, plug in curling iron, start rice to go with chicken, change clothes, put Band-Aid on middle child's skateboarding owie, curl hair (actually put on lipstick!), pull chicken out of pan--I don't remember when I put it on to cook, but by grace of God it tastes really good, assign dinner jobs to children, remind them again and again, eat with family, run out door while husband arrives to announce he is so exhausted from his 1:00 meeting. So is that multitasking? I am not sure; maybe just a full plate."--Melissa Nelson, Wilmette"I myself thought all men were multitaskers until I got older and listened to my married friends. Yikes. I did not know what they were talking about until I saw it firsthand. Yikes again."My dad was a multitasker extraordinaire, so I guess I thought all men were. I remember my dad holding a baby, loading the dishwasher and watching whatever was on the stove at the same time, with an unlit cigar in his mouth. (He liked to chew cigars.) Geez, he was so big and tall and it was just like you're supposed to do this. It was effortless to him, and he had an air about him that it was so dignified. I can't explain it. It was as if it was just an extension of himself and he would not know any other way to be. It wasn't like he was doing my mother a `favor' either; it was his job as a father, I guess. He was very domestic. And always a man's man at the same time."--Beth Black, Chicago"The other day I was at work at [unnamed] cafe-slash-caterer. I was happily baking some popovers when my boss (a man not apt to multitask) asked if I could help for just a minute and serve some food in the cafe. I obliged. Popovers were in mid-mix. A good time to stop if I had to. Popovers are forgiving, as it turns out."Well, I was serving food (multitasking in and of itself) and came back to the kitchen to get the rest of the food. When I realized some of the next meal needed some prep, I jumped on the prep line and started making a salad. Then with my other hand I flipped some toast on the griddle. While all this was happening, I was telling my boss about the next order and who gets what."Suddenly my cell phone rang. It is attached to my hip so if the baby-sitter has a need I am available. I answered my phone with my third hand. It was Rosie [her 7-year-old]. Crying. `Beck [who is 4] just bit me!'"I replied in a calm tone, `I'm sorry that happened to you. I bet you feel lousy and mad at him. I'm mad at him too. Please put him on the phone. You'll be OK.' All the while I was flipping and mixing and overseeing my boss' manly multitasking (nil)."Beck got on the phone: `Mom, I bit her because she wouldn't play with me!'"Me, again calmly: `Beck, biting is not acceptable, and you owe your sister an apology. I will decide your punishment and we'll talk about it when I get home.'"I hung up still flipping and mixing. My boss looked at me and said, `Wow. I can't believe you did all that!' "--Kate Nolan, Riverside
Pick a house, any house. Peek in the kitchen window. Particularly at the bewitching hour, that jam-packed interlude after work and before dinner. This is what you might see:There appears to be a grown-up walking in small circles between counter and stove. Occasionally she darts into next room where little person is tossing cushions off couch, making mountain to jump in. Grown-up piles things from fridge onto counter. Puts pans on stove. Chops onions. Throws chicken in microwave. Older child walks in and asks question about math homework. Without putting down cleaver, grown-up glances at book, ponders, comes up with some thought.Grown-up, measuring rice into pot, grabs phone and cradles on neck, trying to reschedule orthodontist appointment. Leaves message. Dials another number, this time checks in on friend with sick mother. Little person darts into kitchen, wants cookies before dinner. Grown-up explains that dinner is coming, offers carrots in meantime. Grown-up hears cell phone ringing. Cradling both phones, grown-up gets report spouse is running late.Older child returns to kitchen, this time thrusting paper into grown-up's hand. Paper must be signed, as child is collecting sponsors for school charity walk. Doorbell rings. Grown-up masks craziness and calmly answers door.This is not fiction. This is my house. You might call it insanity (and mostly I do). But it is otherwise called multitasking, that modern-day malady that has us scrambling to cram as much into the moment as is humanly possible.While as a concept, making the most of our time has been around as long as humans have had two hands and tasks to occupy both, the term multitasking didn't enter the lexicon until 1966, born out of the capacity of computers to do two or more functions at once.Like all good ideas, it seemed a splendid solution to a world that demands ever more.But now there's a problem, said Stephanie Wilson, organizational guru and bestselling author of five books on the subject of whipping your life into some semblance of order. This pursuit of doing many things at once "has become inflamed, just like an appendix," Wilson said."It sits there minding its business until one day it gets inflamed and then it's sick, and suddenly you can't ignore it. Something like that has happened with the fundamental concept of efficiency. It has become inflamed to the point of creating chaos."You can't get too far into the subject of multitasking before someone starts yammering about its gender-specificity, proclaiming that women are naturals and men simply cannot keep more than one plate spinning.You talkin' to me?"Remember, we gals are born with all our eggs, which means we multitask from the start," argued Colby Beutel, an artist and mother of two on Chicago's Northwest Side. "Guys do their stuff one at a time. Interruptions are not digested, only ignored."Think of chess: The king moves one space at a time, thinking he's all powerful, while the queen can move in any direction she wants, and without her, the king is dead."Checkmate.And yet, despite howls of protest otherwise ("Male multitasker, isn't that an oxymoron," shouted one correspondent to a plea for nominations of men who multitask), the time has come to pop a long, sharp stickpin in the rumblings that somehow men are less than equal in the juggling department."I don't believe the functional data supports that," reported neuro-psychologist Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.He swatted away a 1998 study, done by scientists elsewhere, that he believes wrongly suggested that women might have the upper hand when it comes to multitasking.Just, who has spent years peering into the human mind through functional CAT scans that map brain activity during various cognitive tasks, reports that only when asked to listen to two things simultaneously do women demonstrate higher capacity to do so. In every other pairing of cognitive tasks, listening to a series of true-false statements while mentally twisting three-dimensional figures, for instance, men and women show equal capacities.And, he is quick to add, there is clearly a cap on our capacity to multitask, men or women."How much can you do at one time?" asks Just, who examined that question in a 2001 study. "It's a biological system, there have to be limits. You can't just go piling on thoughts."
In addition to the brain's biological constraints, Just's study, published in the journal NeuroImage, found that there's a limit to how much attention is available to distribute over more than one task and that there is a limit on how well concurrent tasks can be performed.In other words, if it feels as though the more you try to do, the more you're messing up, you might be on to something.Another pair of scientists, in this case social scientists, looked at multitasking through another lens and came up with a similar conclusion: Women don't beat men doing more than one thing at once. So report sociologists Barbara Schneider and Linda Waite, co-directors of the Alfred P. Sloan Center on Working Families at the University of Chicago, who have spent plenty of time probing the multitasking question.No statistical differenceThe just-released findings of their research, titled The 500 Family Study, looked at those hundreds of families in 2000 and 2001. Most of them were dual-career couples with children.The results show women with only a slight edge over men in terms of how often they find themselves doing multiple things at once. Overall, women multitask 57 percent of the time; men, 50 percent of the time, which the researchers claim is not a statistically significant difference.At home, women multitask 43 percent of the time; men, 37 percent of the time. In the workplace, both men and women multitask much less, with no difference between sexes. And especially at work, Schneider and Waite found, multitasking creates feelings of stress and frustration."The bottom line, and it's very important," Schneider said, "basically when you're in the moment in your work, you get tremendous satisfaction. But our lives are so complicated, we multitask a lot of the time. When we're multitasking we don't feel so great about it. No one should feel like, `Oh, that person is multitasking, that person is so efficient; isn't that great?'"The truth is, it's not so great."Hmm, wonder if they peeked in my kitchen window.- - -Busy people can keep many plates spinningAnd you thought you multitasked. Some tales from the multitasking front:"The other night, my first full day back at school [as a kindergarten teacher] with students and parents I get home, check for messages while calling middle child on his cell phone to find out why he isn't here for his guitar lesson, find that I missed a doctor's appointment, jot down new time, throw chicken in microwave to defrost, send off youngest to find oldest so I can get into car for guitar, oops . . . didn't turn off iron from ironing skirt for the parent curriculum night tonight at 7, get home from guitar, finish notes for open house, put oldest child's hand-wash-only clothes (out of washer!) on hangers and clips, plug in curling iron, start rice to go with chicken, change clothes, put Band-Aid on middle child's skateboarding owie, curl hair (actually put on lipstick!), pull chicken out of pan--I don't remember when I put it on to cook, but by grace of God it tastes really good, assign dinner jobs to children, remind them again and again, eat with family, run out door while husband arrives to announce he is so exhausted from his 1:00 meeting. So is that multitasking? I am not sure; maybe just a full plate."--Melissa Nelson, Wilmette"I myself thought all men were multitaskers until I got older and listened to my married friends. Yikes. I did not know what they were talking about until I saw it firsthand. Yikes again."My dad was a multitasker extraordinaire, so I guess I thought all men were. I remember my dad holding a baby, loading the dishwasher and watching whatever was on the stove at the same time, with an unlit cigar in his mouth. (He liked to chew cigars.) Geez, he was so big and tall and it was just like you're supposed to do this. It was effortless to him, and he had an air about him that it was so dignified. I can't explain it. It was as if it was just an extension of himself and he would not know any other way to be. It wasn't like he was doing my mother a `favor' either; it was his job as a father, I guess. He was very domestic. And always a man's man at the same time."--Beth Black, Chicago"The other day I was at work at [unnamed] cafe-slash-caterer. I was happily baking some popovers when my boss (a man not apt to multitask) asked if I could help for just a minute and serve some food in the cafe. I obliged. Popovers were in mid-mix. A good time to stop if I had to. Popovers are forgiving, as it turns out."Well, I was serving food (multitasking in and of itself) and came back to the kitchen to get the rest of the food. When I realized some of the next meal needed some prep, I jumped on the prep line and started making a salad. Then with my other hand I flipped some toast on the griddle. While all this was happening, I was telling my boss about the next order and who gets what."Suddenly my cell phone rang. It is attached to my hip so if the baby-sitter has a need I am available. I answered my phone with my third hand. It was Rosie [her 7-year-old]. Crying. `Beck [who is 4] just bit me!'"I replied in a calm tone, `I'm sorry that happened to you. I bet you feel lousy and mad at him. I'm mad at him too. Please put him on the phone. You'll be OK.' All the while I was flipping and mixing and overseeing my boss' manly multitasking (nil)."Beck got on the phone: `Mom, I bit her because she wouldn't play with me!'"Me, again calmly: `Beck, biting is not acceptable, and you owe your sister an apology. I will decide your punishment and we'll talk about it when I get home.'"I hung up still flipping and mixing. My boss looked at me and said, `Wow. I can't believe you did all that!' "--Kate Nolan, Riverside
Comments
But saying is easy than doing. I need more helps in the domestic work. I am the beaten mom. I want me husband chip in more his hands.