Even computers sometimes when they multitask, the system have to stop one process for another.
Unless for now the technology is so good, the processor in the system have so many cores that each do different tasks, very seldom each can do a few tasks smoothly.
Humans? It might seems that we can multitask well. Yes, to a certain extend I suppose.
At least for me. Cases other then executive switching.
For example, listening to music while doing some other work alongside.
I found out after a while, I won't know what I've been listening to, but only know about the work I've been working on. Most of the time we will find ourselves not doing much and in the end panic, and that's when we start focusing on ONLY the work. So, multitasking?
Another example, is talking to multiple people at the same time, you will tend to realize, sometimes we are paying "less" or "not really" paying attention to certain people.
Or take this another way, if a certain individual have many friends, he/she normally won't spend as much time to a certain one comparing to another individual that only have 1 or 2 close friends.
Here's a short talk about our brain and multitasking, by Nicholas Carr whose most recent book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
To know more about Nicholas Carr go to his website
post note : DON'T OVERLOAD YOUR BRAIN!!!
Oh well, according to Mr. Carr, our brain tends to overwrite previous information with incoming information. If we keep overloading my minds with information, we'll never be focusing or paying attention close enough to anything.
Is this, in the end, we input nothing!
Is this, in the end, we input nothing!
Oh my, beware!
And in the attention case, it is also interesting how people love to draw attention nowadays.
People tend to take note the "QUANTITY" very seriously.
For example, how many Facebook friends you've got (or even Facebook accounts!), how many views you've got for your Youtube videos etc.
Looks like the world have been really looking into amount to relate on attention but need to really take notice what are we to be taking attention to, it might just be something not so important but it have take up most of the time of our daily lives.
This week, one thing took my attention most.
R.I.P Steve Jobs.
For me, I support the idea of Nicholas. That's what reapply happening to me. When I multitask, I lose focus on everything, feel panic and get nothing at the end. Thanks for sharing the video.
ReplyDeleteInteresting video - it seems to me that the problems he is describing are very similar to those described by Linda Stone, and which she calls 'continuous partial attention'. The question still remains - how in an age of information wealth, do we filter that information in ways that we can selectively attend to what is important, in order to remain productive?
ReplyDeletegreat topic again, and thanks for putting that video. Mmm "continuous partial attention"? I should have a look at that. Thanks Christoph for the info sharing. A suggestion to Christoph's question, What if we live and select or prioritise what is important as if we have only today to live? I'm sure then we'll be extremely productive and able to filter appropriately. :)
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