Multitasking Can Make You Lose. Um Focus Summary

Alina Tugend, author of, “Multitasking Can Make You Lose … Um … Focus,” is an accredited author that is featured in multiple respected publications. This article was published in the New York Times in 2008. The article talks about multitasking and how most people think that is a great thing, but in reality it causes more problems that we know. Mrs. Tugend voices her opinion on how multitasking hurts more people that it helps. Her opinions are clearly voiced throughout this article that she does not think multitasking is a benefit for people. She also does research and brings in other accredited people to support her findings. Dr. Edward M Hallowell carries the same views as Mrs. Tugend does. He believes that multitasking hinders process. He says while most people think that they are doing their self-good by doing multiple things at one, they are actually sacrificing focus on everything. Hallowell explains people cannot multitask like they think and become disengaged. An example is being on the phone with someone and trying to email at the same time. He say that you lose concentration and the person on the other end of the phone with be able to tell. Hallowell quotes, “You cannot divide your attention like that. It’s a big illusion. You can shift back forth” (Tugend 715). Mrs. Tugend brings in Earl Miller to

She believes that we are constantly interrupted. She states that a 2005 study showed that people are interrupted and moved from one task to another every 11 minutes. Tugend says is then takes another 25 minutes to get back to that original task. Another study published, that was performed by Gloria Mark, show that people worked faster when interrupted but less productively. Mark said that we self-interrupt as much as people interrupt us. Mark is not sure why we interrupt ourselves so much but further research needs to be done to find