Multitasks
A Do you read while listening to
music? Do you like to watch TV while finishing your homework? People who have
these kinds of habits are called multi-taskers.
Multitasks
are able to complete two tasks at the same time by dividing their focus.
However, Thomas Lehman, a researcher in Psychology, believes people never
really do multiple things simultaneously. Maybe a person is reading while
listening to music, but in reality, the brain can only focus on one task.
Reading the words in a book will cause you to ignore some of the words of the
music. When people think they are accomplishing two different tasks
efficiently, what they are really doing is dividing their focus. While
listening to music, people become less able to focus on their surroundings. For
example, we all have experience of times when we talk with friends and they are
not responding properly. Maybe they are listening to someone else talk, or
maybe they are reading a text on their smart phone and don't hear what you are
saying. Lehman called this phenomenon “email voice"
B
the world has been changed by
computers and its spin offs like smart-phones or cellphones. Now that most
individuals have a personal device, like a smart-phoneor a laptop, they are
frequently reading, watching or listening to virtual information. This raises
the occurrence of multitasking in our day to day life. Nowwhen you work, you
work with your typewriter, your cellphone, and some colleagues who may drop by
at any time to speak with you. In professional meetings, when one normally
focuses and listens to one another, people are more likely to have a cell phone
in their lap, reading or communicating silently with more people than ever,
liven inventions such as the cordless phone has increased multitasking. In the old
days, a traditional wall phone would ring, and then the housewife would have to
stop her activities to answer it. When it rang, the housewife will sit down
with her legs up. and chat, with no laundry or sweeping or answering the door.
In the modern era, our technology is convenient enough to not interrupt our
daily tasks.
C
Earl Miller, an expert at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studied the prefrontal cortex, which
controls the brain while a person is multitasking. According to his studies,
the size of this cortex varies between species, He found that for humans, the
size of this part constitutes one third of the brain, while it is only 4 to 5
percent in dogs, and about 15% in monkeys. Given that this cortex is larger on
a human, it allows a human to be more flexible and accurate in his or her
multitasking.. However, Miller wanted to look further into whether the
cortexwas truly processing information about two different tasks
simultaneously. He designed an experiment where he presents visual stimulants
to his subjects in a wax that mimics multi-tasking. Miller then attached
sensors tothe patients " heads to pick up the electric patterns of the
brain. This sensor would show if" the brain particles, called neurons,
were truly processing two different tasks. What he found is that the brain
neurons only lit up in singular areas one at a time, and never simultaneously.
D
Davis Meyer, a professor of
University of Michigan, studied the young adults in a similar experiment. He
instructed them to simultaneously do math problems and classify simple words
into different categories. For this experiment. Meyer found that when you think
you are doing several jobs at the same time, you are actuallyswitching between
jobs. Even though the people tried to do the tasks at the sametime, and both
tasks were eventually accomplished, overall, the task look more time than if
the person focused on a single task one at a time.
E
People sacrifice efficiency
when multitasking, Gloria Mark set office workers as his subjects. He found
that they were constantly multitasking. He observed that nearly every 11
minutes people at work were disrupted. He found that doing different jobs at
the same time may actually save time. However, despite the fact that they are
faster, it does not mean they are more efficient. And we are equally likely to
self-interrupt as be interrupted by outside sources. He found that in office
nearly every 12 minutes an employee would stop and with no reason at all,cheek
a website on their computer, call someone or write an email. If they
concentrated for more than 20 minutes, they would feel distressed. He
suggestedthat the average person may suffer from a short concentration span.
This short attention span might be natural, but others suggest that new
technology may be the problem. With cellphones and computers at our sides at
all times, people will never run out of distractions. The format of media, such
as advertisements, music, news articles and TV shows are also shortening, so
people are used to paying attention to information for a very short time
F
So even though focusing on one
single task is the most efficient way for our brainsto work, it is not
practical to use this method in real life. According to human nature, people
feel more comfortable and efficient in environments with a varietyof tasks,
Edward Hallowell said that people are losing a lot of efficiency in the
workplace due to multitasking, outside distractions and self-distractions. As
it matter of fact, the changes made to the workplace do not have to be
dramatic.
No
one is suggesting we ban e-mail or make employees focus on only one task.
However, certain common workplace tasks, such as group meetings, would be more
efficient if we banned cell-phones, a common distraction. A person can
alsoapply these tips to prevent self-distraction. Instead of arriving to your
office and checking all of your e-mails for new tasks, a common workplace
ritual, a person could dedicate an hour to a single task first thing in the
morning. Self-timing is a great way to reduce distraction and efficiently
finish tasks one by one, instead of slowing ourselves down with multi-tasking.
Questions 1-5
Reading
Passage 2 has six paragraphs, A-F.
Which
paragraph contains the following information?
Write
the correct letter, A-F, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet
1 a reference to a domestic
situation that does not require multitasking
2 a possible explanation of why we always do
multitask together
3 a practical solution to multitask in work
environment
4 relating multitasking to the size of
prefrontal cortex
5 longer time spent doing two tasks at the same
time than one at a time
Questions 6-10
Look
at the following statements (Questions
6-10) and the list of scientists below.
Match
each statement with the correct scientist,
A-E.
Write
the correct letter, A-E, in boxes 6-10 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any letter more than once.
List of
Scientists
A Thomas Lehman B Earl Miller
C David Meyer
D Gloria Mark
E Edward Hallowell
6 When faced multiple visual
stimulants, one can only concentrate on one of them.
7 Doing two things together may be faster but
not better.
8 People never really do two things together
even if you think you do.
9 The causes of multitask lie in the
environment.
10 Even minor changes in the
workplace will improve work efficiency
Questions 11-13
Complete
the sentences below.
Choose
NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage
for each answer.
Write
your answers in boxes 11-13 on your
answer sheet.
11. A term used to refer to a situation when you are reading a text and
cannot focus on
your
surroundings is _____________.
12. The _____________ part of
the brain controls multitasking.
13. The
practical solution of multitask in work is not to allow use of cellphone in_________.
Answers
1. B
2. E
3. F
4. C
5. D
6. B
7. D
8. A
9. E
10. E
11. email voice
12. prefrontal cortex
13. group meetings
