Multitasking is actually not possible in the way that humans have perceived it. Many believe that it is more productive to do more than one task at once, but the brain however must 'switch tasks' in order to do so. This means that it is impossible for the brain to focus on more than one task at a time, so it is basically counter-productive.
Hi! First off, I wanted to say, Neda and Saki, you are so cool for leading this club and doing such a good job doing it!! I love the idea of having a website and sharing opinions about brain-related topics! As for your question, I think multitasking is very well possible and I have my mother to prove that. She is extraordinary at handling several things at the same time and that's why she's so productive. But when I tried multitasking myself, it didn't work as well for me as it did for my mum - my attention was all over the place and so I made many mistakes along the way. I noticed that multitasking doesn't work not just for me, but for other teens too. My own opinion is that it has to do with our prefrontal cortex which is responsible for a certain type of multitasking behaviour (according to ScienceDaily) and, like I mentioned in our club's meeting, isn't completely developed until we turn 23-25 years old. This type of behaviour is called branching: "it involves keeping a goal in mind over time (working memory) while at the same time being able to change focus among tasks (attentional resource allocation)". So if scientists could map this behaviour to a specific region in our brain, then multitasking is certainly not a myth (and again, I have my amazing mother to prove that 😎)
Multitasking is actually not possible in the way that humans have perceived it. Many believe that it is more productive to do more than one task at once, but the brain however must 'switch tasks' in order to do so. This means that it is impossible for the brain to focus on more than one task at a time, so it is basically counter-productive.
Hi! First off, I wanted to say, Neda and Saki, you are so cool for leading this club and doing such a good job doing it!! I love the idea of having a website and sharing opinions about brain-related topics! As for your question, I think multitasking is very well possible and I have my mother to prove that. She is extraordinary at handling several things at the same time and that's why she's so productive. But when I tried multitasking myself, it didn't work as well for me as it did for my mum - my attention was all over the place and so I made many mistakes along the way. I noticed that multitasking doesn't work not just for me, but for other teens too. My own opinion is that it has to do with our prefrontal cortex which is responsible for a certain type of multitasking behaviour (according to ScienceDaily) and, like I mentioned in our club's meeting, isn't completely developed until we turn 23-25 years old. This type of behaviour is called branching: "it involves keeping a goal in mind over time (working memory) while at the same time being able to change focus among tasks (attentional resource allocation)". So if scientists could map this behaviour to a specific region in our brain, then multitasking is certainly not a myth (and again, I have my amazing mother to prove that 😎)