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The $650 billion multitasking hit
March 28, 2007
I commented earlier on NASA research showing that people are not very good at multitasking. Now, the New York Times reports on additional studies that “suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying, or driving a car.”
Here are some specific suggestions:
• Don’t check e-mail more often that once an hour. (What about answering the phone?)
• You can listen to soothing music while working or studying, but nothing with lyrics. (What about scat singing?)
• Don’t drive and talk on a cell phone—even with a hands-free headset. (Is it ok to talk to someone else in the car, or must one drive in complete silence?)
Here are some studies cited in the article:
• Researchers at the Human Information Processing Laboratory at Vanderbilt University presented subjects with simple tasks such as pressing a key in response to a sound. Grouping the tasks close together exacted a one-second penalty.
• Research at the Institute for the Future of the Mind at Oxford University suggests that 18- to 21-year-olds are no better at multitasking than 35- to 39-year-olds.
• A recent study found that a group of Microsoft workers took an average of 15 minutes to return to “serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages.”
• Researchers from the Sloan School of Management at MIT and the Stern School of Business at New York University studied workers at an executive recruiting firm; they found that “beyond an optimum, more multitasking is associated with declining project completion rates and revenue generation.”
The bottom line, according to the Times article: “The productivity lost by overtaxed multitaskers cannot be measured precisely, but it is probably a lot. Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business-research firm, estimates the cost of interruptions to the American economy at nearly $650 billion a year.”
Posted by Rick Nelson on March 28, 2007 | Comments (0)
