[CNN.com] [/CAREER] [In Focus] MAIN PAGE WORLD Study: Multitasking is counterproductive U.S. WEATHER (Your boss may not like this one) BUSINESS SPORTS [(Your boss may not like this one)] By Porter Anderson POLITICS ------------------------------------CNN Career LAW SCI-TECH ------------------------------------(CNN) -- Multitasking is a SPACE managerial buzz-concept HEALTH these days, a post-layoff corporate assumption that the few can ENTERTAINMENT be made to do the work of many. TRAVEL EDUCATION But newly released results of scientific studies in multitasking CAREER indicate that carrying on several duties at once may, in fact, IN-DEPTH reduce productivity, not increase it. "In some cases, you could be wasting your employer's time," says Click Here researcher Joshua Rubenstein, Ph.D., formerly of the University QUICK NEWS of Michigan and now with the Federal Aviation Administration LOCAL (FAA) working on security issues. "And in certain cases" of COMMUNITY multitasking, Rubenstein says, "you could be risking employers a MULTIMEDIA dangerous outcome." E-MAIL SERVICES CNN ON PDA In the research behind an article titled "Executive Control of ABOUT US Cognitive Processes in Task Switching" -- being published Monday in the American Psychological Society's Journal of Experimental CNN TV Psychology: Human Perception and Performance -- Rubenstein and what's on his associates David Meyer, Ph.D., and Jeffrey Evans, Ph.D., show determined that for all types of tasks, subjects lost time when transcripts they had to switch from one task to another. CNN Headline News These "time costs" increased with the QUICKVOTE CNN complexity of the chores: It took longer, [graphic] How much International say researchers Rubenstein and Meyer, for multitasking askCNN subjects to switch between more are you asked to do complicated tasks. at work? EDITIONS CNN.com Asia "People in a work setting," says Meyer, Too much, I need CNN.com Europe "who are banging away on word processors eight arms and four set your at the same time they have to answer legs. edition phones and talk to their co-workers or A growing amount, bosses -- they're doing switches all the it's getting worse. time. Not being able to concentrate for, say, tens of minutes at a time, may mean A moderate amount, it's costing a company as much as 20 to 40 it's bearable. percent" in terms of potential efficiency Little or none, no lost, or the "time cost" of switching, as problem for me. these researchers call it. View Results "In effect," says Meyer, "you've got writer's block briefly as you go from one Watch CNN for task to another. You've got to (a) want to television coverage switch tasks, you've got to (b) make the of David Meyer and switch and then you've got to (c) get Joshua Rubenstein's warmed back up on what you're doing. research on multitasking. Driving while talking on a cell phone, maybe making business calls while trying to get to your next meeting, is being used by these researchers as an example of a potentially disastrous multitasking scenario. "A lot of folks," says Meyer, "think, 'Well, cell phoning while driving is really no big deal and I can get away with it.' But even if you have a cell phone that's not held by hand and can be dialed by voice, you still have a really big conflict because when you're driving you need to be looking at various different places, you need to be reading signs, you need to be talking to yourself about those in order to -- through your mental speech -- make decisions about where to go with your car. And there's no way to do that while on the cell phone because you have to use your 'inner ears' and 'inner speech' and even your 'inner eyes' to imagine what the person on the phone is talking about." "We found that 'switch cost,'" says Rubenstein, "increases with the complexity of the tasks. That suggests that a very simple conversation on the phone while driving a car -- maybe 'Honey, please pick up some bread on the way home' -- might not draw too much concentration. But if the conversation becomes difficult or emotionally charged or mentally taxing -- like 'Honey, the house is burning down, what should I do?' -- it draws more attention and more mental resources away from your primary task, which is driving the car: You're more likely to have an accident." Tasks at hand The application to work scenarios is quite clear and, says Rubenstein, even quantifiable. [Meyer] What are you doing right now as you read this article? Ordering supplies Researcher David Meyer, for the office from your distribution Ph.D.: "It's kind of warehouse? Monitoring a screen for like one of the 'Dirty production equipment performance? Harry' movies with Clint Getting an e-mail back to your Eastwood. At the end of colleagues in the Denver office? the film Clint says, 'A Carrying on Instant Message man's gotta know his conversations with three co-workers? limitations.'" Writing up a report in Word for the meeting on Wednesday? Eating the lunch you never have time to leave the desk for? Opening and reading traditional mail? Filing an in-house memo to Tech Services because your browser is acting up? Making a list of the clients you're expect to reach by close-of-business today? Trying to resize the fonts in the company newsletter so it fits on one page? "There's no doubt that over the course of the last century," says Meyer, "there's been an exponential explosion of available information. Part of the responsibility of people developing this technology -- computer manufacturers, 'big Bill' (Gates) out in Seattle -- should be taking into account the multitasking limitations of people using it." "This even applies to homework," Rubenstein says. "I'm seeing this in my nephews. They're doing too many things while they're doing their homework. And it makes it less efficient." The task of research Rubenstein, Meyer and Evans studied patterns in the amounts of time lost when people switched repeatedly between two tasks of varying complexity and familiarity. In four experiments, young adult subjects switched between different tasks, such as solving math problems or classifying geometric objects. The researchers measured subjects' speed of performance as a function of whether the successive tasks were familiar or unfamiliar, and whether the rules for performing them were simple or complex. The work was done at the University of Michigan in 1993 and 1994, Rubenstein David [graphic] says. Meyer adds that one funding source Meyer, for this research is the United States Ph.D.: Office of Naval Research. Applying the research "It's very common," says Rubenstein, "for * Top multitasker: research to take several years to go "If you saw the through the review process. And I movie 'Top Gun' continued to do some additional research (1986), you'll for several years on brain-damaged remember what all patients in California. There's a type of you see Tom Cruise brain-damaged patient who can keep all the doing in the functions of intelligence intact but lose cockpit. He's got the 'essential executive.' And those with to pick and choose prefrontal cortex damage have trouble when he does what, doing task-switching." multitask very carefully. The What takes time when you go from one job chance that he'll to another, they found, are two, distinct conclude a flight and complementary stages. "Goal shifting" in a fighter jet might be summed up in the line "I want to successfully do this now instead of that," while "rule depends not only on activation" might be verbalized as "I'm his capabilities turning off the rules for that and turning and limitations but on the rules for this." also on his equipment. "If you went into an industry," he says, "and identified a bunch of tasks that "So far as we can people in that industry do," Rubenstein understand his says, "you could very easily estimate what capabilities and the losses were from having employees go limitations, we through these shifts between tasks." have the opportunity to "What industry and people in private life improve his need," says Meyer, "are time-training equipment to take managers. Turns out the auto industry is advantage of his trying to develop 'workload managers' for capabilities and those who are driving automobiles to help protect him from automate which tasks they focus on at his limitations. which time. And sooner or later, advanced technology will be developed further for "And on an aircraft helping with these particular problems. carrier, operators perform in command "It's kind of like one of the 'Dirty information Harry' movies with Clint Eastwood. At the centers. They have end of the film Clint says, 'A man's gotta to process lots of know his limitations.'" information across many, many channels that require all sorts of different decisions to be made. In order to do that job, the operator must multitask -- and if not, figure out how to cope with the limitations." The U.S. Office of Naval Research is a funding source for the study made at the University of Michigan by Joshua Rubenstein, Davie Meyer and Jeffrey Evans. [watercooler] RELATED STORIES: * Corporate Class: Vacations are easy, taking them is hard June 22, 2001 * Study: Many U.S. employees feel overworked May 16, 2001 * Weekend work piles up for execs April 6, 2001 * Scrambling to keep up: New media careerists February 22, 2001 * Looking it up: Multitasking librarians November 28, 2000 * Study: When wives overwork, husbands' health declines August 18, 2000 RELATED SITES: * American Psychological Association * Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance * The Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory -- more information on David Meyer's research site * University of Michigan Note: Pages will open in a new browser window External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive. CAREER TOP STORIES: * Still standing * Skies safe from layoffs * Lucent eyes further cost cuts * Software release specialist: 'Computer years' * Teacher in Japan: 'Once an English major ...' 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