TEXTO:
Multitasking harmful to productivity
Scientists have found that focusing on multiple
media sources, such as email, phone, the internet, and
television, all at once does not make you more efficient.
In fact, multitaskers find it harder to concentrate.
5 Researchers at Stanford University in the United
States divided a group of over 250 students into light or
heavy media multitaskers. Light multitaskers focus on
just one or two sources at a time — listening to music
while working for example. Heavy multitaskers watch
10 online videos, surf the web, talk or text on their mobiles,
and write or read, all at the same time. Lead researcher
Cliff Nass wanted to see how this would affect the way
their brains work. “You would think that people who are
multitasking with all these media at once would be great
15 at ignoring irrelevant information. However, we discovered
they are suckers for irrelevant information, so they’re
much worse than low multitaskers at ignoring the
irrelevant”, says Nass.
Not only that, but multitaskers are worse at
20 organizing and sorting information, and worse at switching
from one task to another. The findings have left the
scientists with something of a mystery — why do people
multitask at all? They say that in an increasingly
demanding work environment, expecting staff to be
25 constantly available by email and instant message while
doing their jobs may actually mean that productivity falls.
MULTITASKING, harmful to productivity. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 2 jan. 2010.
This article is mainly about people who
