Some students were wanting to listen to their iPods in class today so I directed them to my ‘iPods in class’ post. It sparked up the whole multitasking thing and the cry went up “but females can!” I tried to explain the research vs the myth thing but myths are very strong and the appreciation (and willingness?) of twelve year olds for the intricacies of scientific research were, well, limited. It did get me thinking though. Sometimes in a desire to simplify a message to make it easier to to communicate it ends up being distorted. It is said there is beauty in simplicity but in my opinion it is more often found in the complexity.
See, the brain can’t multitask period. Check out the Brain Rules or the many other places this is discussed. So when you are “multitasking” your brain is actually switching between tasks very quickly. In effect it puts one thing on autopilot while it pays attention to another and then repeats the cycle. If the things you are doing are relatively mundane and well practiced the performance hit you suffer is often not noticeable (e.g. walking slowly to the couch while watching TV and sipping that hot chocolate you just made.) But if you add some unpredictability (e.g. 2 year old racing down the hall trying to beat you to the couch) it becomes quite obvious. There’s a reason why it’s illegal to talk on a phone while driving. From a teaching and learning perspective recall and creativity suffer similar performance hits. Go figure.
