You might be multitasking, but you suck at it

An article over at the Huffington Post backs up something I’ve believed ever since I first heard the term ‘multitasking’ — those who engage in said activity are easily distracted individuals who do sloppy work.  In fact, those that multitask more often are those that are the worst at it.

I’m not a productivity guru, but multitasking is no longer restricted to just a business setting:

In a society that seems to encourage more and more multitasking, the findings have social implications, Nass observed. Multitasking is already blamed for car crashes as several states restrict the use of cell phones while driving. Lawyers or advertisers can try to use irrelevant information to distract and refocus people to influence their decisions.

Although the article goes into more detail about the actual scientific study, the short version is this:  people who multitask more often have greater difficulty keeping separate tasks distinct from one another in their mind. 

That said, I should have a snappy one-liner to end this blog entry, but I’m too busy thinking about a letter I’m supposed to be writing.  Hopefully, it will be of higher quality than these few paragraphs, but I have my doubts.