Essay About Multitasking
Multitasking – “the ability to do several different things at once” Nowadays, people prefer to divide people in two groups; people who masters to multitask, and those who can’t. Almost everyone place themselves in the former group, thereafter they put the rest of the people in the latter. But of course most people are lying. I personally take advantage of multitasking daily to a certain extent, yes, practically all the time – in a certain level. And my perception of multitasking is the same as http://www. google. no/ ‘s perception on what multitasking is; it’s simply to have the ability to do several different things at once.
But something that should be mentioned here is that no one can really multitask. It’s when we think we’re multitasking; we’re only jumping from one thing to another. This way of doing things is addictive and can of course eventually cause us difficulties among our ability to concentrate. With other word; it is physically impossible for a human to do two things at the same time. Then, I don’t mean that it is completely impossible to do two things at the same time; such as talking while walking, or smiling while dancing.
No, I mean that it is impossible to multitask – to do two things at the same time – as long as the two things that should be done at the same time, requires a lot of concentration and attention to be done correct. I guess you yourself are able to distinguish between which tasks that requires a lot of concentration, and which requires less. Whether you’re driving a car while talking on the phone, or if you write e-mails during meetings, it is not true that you do both at once – it’s impossible. Unlike the other examples I’ve already mentioned.
What you actually do when you’re doing the concentration demanding-tasks is to focus on the first one and then the other, a so-called “switch-tasking”. Because if you’re doing two concentration demanding things at once , of course your concentration is divided between to tasks at the same time – therefore the result of your actions won’t be as good as they could’ve been – if the tasks were done separately and thoroughly. It’s been proven time after time over the last years: multitasking is something only computers can do.
What we humans do, when we think that we’re “multitasking”, is to jump from doing one thing to another, as mentioned earlier. But let us not forget that there’s one more group; those who need to multitask. I’d most probably put myself in that group – the group of people who can’t concentrate and focus on one specific thing unless she or he is doing at least one more thing at the exact same time. Now, you may call it ADHD, while I would rather call it being efficient.
Of course there’s possible to listen to music while you’re doing your homework – to exclude the other actions around you, and to increase your concentration, like I personally do. But also here, the perceptions are different. Some people find hearing music while doing homework as disturbing. I think that the perception and the results of multitasking are different from person to person, depending on whom the person concerned is and what tasks there is to be done. A day should absolutely have more hours so all tasks on the to-do-list could’ve been done!
But that isn’t something we can change… so I think that the only thing we can do is to make the best out of it and remember to relax now and then.
Sources
- http://m. theglobeandmail. com/report-on-business/careers/careers-leadership/the-lunch/eileen-mercier-its-all-about-multitasking/article2021801/? service=mobile
- http://www. klikk. no/kvinneguiden/helse/article761396. ece
- http://www. universityessays. com/example-essays/business/the-ethics-of-multitasking. php
- http://www. webopedia. com/TERM/M/multitasking. html http://www. tinbergen. nl/discussionpapers/11044. pdf
