How Many Things Can The Human Brain Focus On At Once
Nov 8, 2016 - Why The Brain Can Only Focus On One Thing At A Time. Otherwise the person would need to be a supertasker, a small group of humans — estimates are between 2 and 2.5 percent of. They're pretty much mental wrecks.
Multitasking is pretty much seen as a necessity in the modern world. The ability to do several things at once – even if it’s something as apparently simple as emailing and talking at the same time – is taken for granted.But the belief that engaging in several tasks at once means we are more productive is a myth. Instead of saving time, multitasking not only takes longer but also makes mistakes more likely. It also does something to our brains that
That was the thesis of one of the keynote speakers at a conference I attended this week. The speaker was Dr JoAnn Deak, a noted educator and psychologist whose books include Your Fantastic Elastic Brain. The conference was the annual get-together of the Girls’ Schools Association, which represents many of the all-girls’ private schools in the U.K.
And even though the talk was specific to education and learning, it has implications not just for schools and teachers, but for employers and employees as well as parents and just about anybody who thinks doing more than one thing at a time is a good idea.
The myth of multitasking may not be a surprise to some. A quick turn around the streets of a busy town will soon tell you that some people find simultaneous texting and walking, let alone texting and driving, a bit of a challenge.
But even if you’ve always known that multitasking is a chimera, Dr Deak provides the science to back up your belief.
Supported by research into how the brain functions, Dr Deak argues that the brain is only able to focus deeply on one task at a time. And not only that, trying to do too many things at once causes the brain to lose the capacity for deep thinking altogether.
“When you try to multitask, in the short-term it doubles the amount of time it takes to do a task and it usually at least doubles the number of mistakes,” she told the conference.
“In the long-term it changes the brain from being able to focus deeply on a single task well, to being what we call a rifle, that wants to jump around a lot.”
Children and adolescents, with their rapidly developing and elastic brains, are particularly vulnerable to such changes, she added.
The brain does not have enough connections to be doing two complex tasks at the same time. Even something as seemingly innocuous as listening to music while doing homework causes students to lose focus.
Instead of concentrating on their maths, messages are fired off within the brain preparing it to shift attention, followed by what Dr Deak calls a “jukebox-like search” for the parts involved in hearing music, and finally starting to focus on the music.
How Many Things Can The Human Brain Focus On At Once Time
“If you are listening to Mozart while you are going maths, whenever your brain starts to hear Mozart it has to leave the maths part, and that takes time,” Dr Deak said. When the brain starts to refocus on maths, it goes through the whole process again.
What is worse, Deak went on, the more developing minds do this the more it stimulates parts of the brain associated with pleasure. Activities that do not involve rapid and repeated switching between tasks – such as listening to a teacher talking – become boring, while those that do become sought after.
“We’re creating a generation of minds who have extreme difficulty dealing with long-term input,” she said. “Anything that isn’t multitasking is perceived as boring.”
These young minds may be able to rapidly switch between tasks, but they are not able to do so in any depth, she added. The result is that they end up just skimming across the surface of the task at hand.
For students, multitasking does not end with listening to music while doing homework. Taking notes while listening to a teacher also counts as multitasking, as does listening to a teacher while using an electronic device in class.
“Using a computer while being interactive in class is one of the worst forms of multitasking,” she said. “The mind can’t listen intensely, process it deeply enough and write it down at the same time.”
Ideally, teacher instruction – or input – should be in short bursts of 10 or 20 minutes, each followed by the students expressing what they have learned, either through discussion, notes or actions – the output.
The crucial point is that this should only happen after the teacher has finished talking. In the same way, highlighting a passage while reading does not help learning, but if it is done after reading “it sky-rockets comprehension,” Dr Deak said.
Research shows that ending each section with some form of output is the best form of learning, Dr Deak added.
For many teachers – and their students – this is very much counter to the way they are used to doing things. But with today’s children and adolescents surrounded by so many distractions, it is vital not to duck the challenge.
And the rest of us need to realise that while we may think multitasking is a good use of our time, if any of the tasks involve a focus, we should not be deluded into thinking it makes us more productive.
'>Multitasking is pretty much seen as a necessity in the modern world. The ability to do several things at once – even if it’s something as apparently simple as emailing and talking at the same time – is taken for granted.
But the belief that engaging in several tasks at once means we are more productive is a myth. Instead of saving time, multitasking not only takes longer but also makes mistakes more likely. It also does something to our brains that
That was the thesis of one of the keynote speakers at a conference I attended this week. The speaker was Dr JoAnn Deak, a noted educator and psychologist whose books include Your Fantastic Elastic Brain. The conference was the annual get-together of the Girls’ Schools Association, which represents many of the all-girls’ private schools in the U.K.
And even though the talk was specific to education and learning, it has implications not just for schools and teachers, but for employers and employees as well as parents and just about anybody who thinks doing more than one thing at a time is a good idea.
The myth of multitasking may not be a surprise to some. A quick turn around the streets of a busy town will soon tell you that some people find simultaneous texting and walking, let alone texting and driving, a bit of a challenge.
But even if you’ve always known that multitasking is a chimera, Dr Deak provides the science to back up your belief.
Supported by research into how the brain functions, Dr Deak argues that the brain is only able to focus deeply on one task at a time. And not only that, trying to do too many things at once causes the brain to lose the capacity for deep thinking altogether.
“When you try to multitask, in the short-term it doubles the amount of time it takes to do a task and it usually at least doubles the number of mistakes,” she told the conference.
“In the long-term it changes the brain from being able to focus deeply on a single task well, to being what we call a rifle, that wants to jump around a lot.”
Children and adolescents, with their rapidly developing and elastic brains, are particularly vulnerable to such changes, she added.
The brain does not have enough connections to be doing two complex tasks at the same time. Even something as seemingly innocuous as listening to music while doing homework causes students to lose focus.
Instead of concentrating on their maths, messages are fired off within the brain preparing it to shift attention, followed by what Dr Deak calls a “jukebox-like search” for the parts involved in hearing music, and finally starting to focus on the music.
“If you are listening to Mozart while you are going maths, whenever your brain starts to hear Mozart it has to leave the maths part, and that takes time,” Dr Deak said. When the brain starts to refocus on maths, it goes through the whole process again.
What is worse, Deak went on, the more developing minds do this the more it stimulates parts of the brain associated with pleasure. Activities that do not involve rapid and repeated switching between tasks – such as listening to a teacher talking – become boring, while those that do become sought after.
“We’re creating a generation of minds who have extreme difficulty dealing with long-term input,” she said. “Anything that isn’t multitasking is perceived as boring.”
These young minds may be able to rapidly switch between tasks, but they are not able to do so in any depth, she added. The result is that they end up just skimming across the surface of the task at hand.
For students, multitasking does not end with listening to music while doing homework. Taking notes while listening to a teacher also counts as multitasking, as does listening to a teacher while using an electronic device in class.
“Using a computer while being interactive in class is one of the worst forms of multitasking,” she said. “The mind can’t listen intensely, process it deeply enough and write it down at the same time.”
Ideally, teacher instruction – or input – should be in short bursts of 10 or 20 minutes, each followed by the students expressing what they have learned, either through discussion, notes or actions – the output.
The crucial point is that this should only happen after the teacher has finished talking. In the same way, highlighting a passage while reading does not help learning, but if it is done after reading “it sky-rockets comprehension,” Dr Deak said.
Research shows that ending each section with some form of output is the best form of learning, Dr Deak added.
For many teachers – and their students – this is very much counter to the way they are used to doing things. But with today’s children and adolescents surrounded by so many distractions, it is vital not to duck the challenge.
And the rest of us need to realise that while we may think multitasking is a good use of our time, if any of the tasks involve a focus, we should not be deluded into thinking it makes us more productive.