In this era of information oversaturation, notification overload, and app-for-everything overkill, many people have turned to multitasking as one strategy for keeping their heads above the digital waters. Research shows that switching quickly between projects can reduce productivity by up to 40 percent.
The extra hours you seem to be creating by multitasking come with serious trade-offs compared to focused unitasking. When we’re bombarded with simultaneous streams of electronic information, we lose focus which then negatively impacts our ability to recall the information. And research has found signs that media multitaskers have less grey matter density in the brain region responsible for cognitive and emotional control.
The science is still preliminary, but are we going to look back on this era one day and shake our heads over how we ignored signs that constant multitasking eats away at our brains?
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