Category Archives: Problem Practices

Communication behavior or analysis that is often counter-productive

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The Mistake of Multitasking

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There’s near unanimity in the literature on comprehension that critical thinking and accurate listening decline when we fragment our attention.

Fall’s quicker pace in the school and workplace offers the chance for a timely remember that some work habits are self-defeating.  In terms of attention to detail, perhaps nothing exacts a higher price than the belief that we can do several things at once.

As I’ve noted in this space before, the fundamental problem is that no one is good at multitasking.  We are simply not wired to fully deal with a variety of stimuli at once.  We may think otherwise. But how often do you hear someone else offering reminders that suggest our attention was elsewhere? “I told you that yesterday,” “You must have missed it,” or “You left some important things in that email” all serve as useful indicators.

In computer terms, we are better at serial processing than parallel processing. Technology writer Nicholas Carr explains why our brains cannot successfully process more than a few competing bits of information:

There’s near unanimity in the literature on comprehension that critical thinking and listening declines when we fragment our attention. To put it simply, multitasking makes us just a little bit stupid. As researcher Clifford Nass famously noted, multitaskers are “suckers for irrelevancy.”  Because “everything distracts them,” their intellectual performance on important tasks deteriorates.  Sometimes the person addicted to a digital stew of stimuli is the last to know that they have become functionally impaired.

It’s a common mistake to assume that being “busy” means being “fully engaged.”  We perform our busyness as a badge of honor.  But it’s closer to the truth to conclude that the more we structure lives to include distractions, the less we are able to get past this self-induced noise that complicates the completion of an important task.

Try a simple experiment.  Read your email or a series of text-messages while also listening to someone explain how to get to an address on the other side of town. No GPS device allowed. An active and full-time listener will probably process the directions correctly, or ask questions until they have the mental map they need.  The split-time listener is more likely to end up lost, often compounding their distraction by calling from from a moving car to get new directions.  Alas, that makes things even worse. Distracted driving is a form of multitasking that kills more pedestrians each year.

Look for models in those from all walks of life who still have the will to engage with one thing for an extended period.  These linear thinkers may be younger readers happily caught in the thrall of a writer or literary genre; newspaper consumers who will follow an investigative story across three pages of a broadsheet; or the curious who are in the thrall of a speaker or performer over a sustained period of time. To be sure, these individuals increasingly seem to be outliers. We now tend to notice an “unusual” passion for thirsty listening, ‘doing’ or reading.  These linear thinkers are now much more out of the norm, different from the rest of us swamped in a clutter of trivia.

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Many of Us Do Our Own Stunts

Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , 
For an underwater sequence in the film "Mission Impossible--Rogue Nation," Tom Cruise learned how to hold his breath for six and a half minutes, according to the film's director.  
                                             -The New York Times.

Tom Cruise is surely an all-purpose actor. The press is full of stories about his prowess in doing hair-raising feats for the camera. But he doesn’t have a lock on the idea that you don’t necessarily need a double.  For years many of us have been pulling off feats others would think improbable and unlikely.

Here’s a personal shortlist:

  • I managed to have the speed-limit on the narrow one-lane road in front of my house raised after a sustained effort to have it lowered.  This provides evidence that (a) some of us are better at teaching persuasion than doing it, or (b) like its federal counterpart, local governments can be completely unresponsive.

  • After a long-running struggle with a publisher to include larger text and bold graphics in a new book, the eventual product featured print with letters the size of poppy seeds.  And there are about as many graphics as might be found in a book on contract law.  Without trying, I have apparently done my part to revive the sale of magnifying glasses.

  • Long ago during in mid-performance with specially selected high school musicians from around the state–and with no help from anyone else–I managed to stumble and pull a number of metal folding chairs off an elevated stage. This clamorous and improvised fortissimo was in addition to what had been written for those of us in the percussion section.  The guest conductor was nice enough to stop the performance and wait for me to climb back on stage, giving more meaning to the phrase, “my last shred of dignity.”

  • High school is when intent and action often diverge. As a supporting actor in the senior play I seemed to have a natural gift for “stealing scenes” from the lead actors by randomly moving around  the set while they were talking. I think I heard my drama coach comment under her breath that my performance was “never to be duplicated.”

  • In a pattern that suggests mastery of the form, a few times over my 45 years of teaching I’ve managed to show up a week early for a committee meeting.  It’s always good to check out a room before an important gathering.

  • I’m most proud of the “magic” set I had as a teenager, and the opportunity it provided to plant a tiny explosive in one of my father’s cigarettes.  As intended, it went off when he lit up.  That it exploded in the middle of a business meeting in his office was not an outcome I anticipated.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was doing my part to combat the effects of secondhand smoke.

Who said that all stunts have to go off as planned?  I’d argue for a broader definition; a stunt is sometimes whatever happens.  Planning for specific outcomes can be overrated and–more than we might wish–beyond our grasp.  The perfect response is always a goal. But sometimes we just have to accept events, like the concert that literally brought my inflated teenage ego back to earth.