THE MULTITASKING MYTH – Why There’s Still Hope For Us Men

PHOTO: New York Times

This post is in remembrance and honor of Clifford Nass, the late Stanford professor whose pioneering research into how humans interact with technology found that the increasingly screen-saturated, multitasking modern world is not nurturing the ability to concentrate, analyze or feel empathy. He also proved that multi-taskers tend to not be very good at any of the tasks they undertake…including multitasking! Nass died in 2013 at age 55.

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Most of us can easily do two things at once; what’s all but impossible is to do one thing at once. ~ MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook

There should be a new law targeting dangerous drivers. The offence: DWL – Driving While Listening.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m listening intently to someone, in the car or anywhere else, I might as well be blind. I came to realize this about the tenth time I sailed right past our exit when listening and responding—as a good husband should—to my wife.

Is it that the signals my brain receives from my ears somehow trump those coming from my eyes, or is it just that one sense—any sense—when applied fully, taps all the concentration my brain can muster at any given moment? In other words, can I, or can anyone, really do two things, both of them thoughtfully and thoroughly, at the same time?

       The serial-tasker...might complete just 
       one of the tasks, but likely in finer detail.

A ZERO-SUM GAME
There’s no doubt some people are better at the multitasking game than others. God knows, everyone’s better at it than I. And, while all kinds of people can do it to one degree or another, it seems its mastery is something that’s hard-wired into the nervous system of more females—especially mothers—than men.

You'll notice I said "seems." Though females may seem better able to do several things at once, I believe it’s really a zero-sum game. They, and men who multitask, are taking roughly the same amount of concentration and intensity that others possess, mixing it up and spreading it over a wider area.

So, even though none of the individual tasks gets the exhaustive attention a serial-tasker might have given it, they’ll all get done. That serial-tasker, in roughly the same amount of time, might complete just one of the tasks, but likely in finer detail.

PHOTO: http://www.palmpressinc.com/product-tag/baby-in-sink/

You divert some attention to a second or third task, and the rest suffer a performance deficit of almost exactly the same amount.

A recent public television documentary on the impact of the social media (including e-mail, text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) shed some light on my zero-sum theory. Some of the brightest students at Stanford and MIT were interviewed about their ability to multitask, both while studying and during classes. (There was no attempt to compare males with females.)

To a person, the students insisted they could easily exchange email and manage their cyber-persona, while in class, without any adverse impact on their learning comprehension. Their professors, incredibly, seemed to agree.

Sound too good to be true? It is. The program’s research indicated exactly the opposite. It concluded, as I’d expect, that “multitasking” simply divides a finite amount of attention into fractions. You divert some attention to a second or third task, and the rest suffer a performance deficit of almost exactly the same amount.

Nowhere is this more dramatically illustrated than on our streets and highways. There’s no question, despite their protestations to the contrary, that those who pretend to drive cars and also do anything else at the same time—like putting on makeup, futzing with the GPS or texting (in my case, I guess the list should include listening to my wife)—are doing so at their own and others’ great peril.

After examining the behavior of truck drivers covering more than 6 million miles of road, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concluded that people who send text messages while driving are 23 times more likely to be in a crash (or what they call a near-crash event) than nondistracted drivers.

How do you choose which approach is better? The answer is we don’t; that’s why we have marriage.


THE WAY WE’RE BUILT
So, back to the perilous ground of gender typing, might all this amount to some kind of vindication for us predominantly-male uni-taskers? Or does it even make sense to compare the sexes’ relative capacities for concentration?

One is broad; the other, deep. One is strong; the other, fast. One’s analytical; the other, intuitive. How do you choose which approach is better? The answer is we don’t; that’s why we have marriage.

In terms of evolution, this equal-but-different arrangement meant the males who got to carry on the blood lines were those best able to hunt or fend off predators, unconflicted by other concerns or emotions. They operated on raw courage, intimate knowledge of Nature, and finely-honed focus.

Meanwhile, the women who tended to survive were those best able to nurture several kids, maintain the cave and simultaneously manage family and community relationships, endeavors laced with emotions and nuance.

Turns out the two sets of roles complemented each other perfectly. When I hear couples lamenting each other’s shortcomings—pretending that, as rational adults in this day and age, they should be able to get past those timeless, stereotypical roles—I want to remind them that neither of them can help it. It’s the way we’re built.

BLOGGING AHEAD
All of this has an immediate, very personal significance for me as I work on my writing and blogging. I’m left with the conclusion that, in order to fully concentrate on any of it, I have to…..uh-h-h, just a second…What’s that smell? I…..oh, no! Damn! I left my dinner in the oven and it seems there’s a small fire! Just a minute. Where’s my…Let’s see, 9…1…

THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION – The Difference Between Women and Men

PART TWO OF TWO PARTS

COULD YOU PLEASE BOX THAT?

When my wife and her women friends get together, I listen in awe to how they communicate. Indeed, they seem to move seamlessly from one topic to the next, following what might best be described as a non-linear train of thought. At times, conventional language comprises, if anything, only part of the conversation.

A woman will start out with what sounds like it’s going to be a sentence, but then, after little more than the subject comes out, she’ll either start a new sentence or be interrupted by someone else’s sentence fragment. To a male, it would seem that almost no real information is exchanged, yet everyone seems to understand completely.
 
My wife does this with me too, often with disappointing results. She knows exactly what she’s saying and assumes I do too, even though her actual words have not delivered a complete thought.

   Occasionally she’ll take 
   issue with something I never said, but which she 
   knows I must have been thinking.

To be fair, she's equally confounded by my thoughts and how I attempt to convey them—or not convey them. It baffles her how much time I devote to assigning my thoughts and plans their proper boxes. She’s sometimes hurt by the fact that my box for apologies (like that of most men) is either missing or in very poor repair.

Occasionally she’ll take issue with something I never said, but which she knows I must have been thinking.

PRESENT TENSE; FUTURE IMPERFECT*

Men and women have different concepts of time.

While I have separate compartments for past, present and future events, to my wife they’re not so easy to distinguish. I choose to think only about the present and maybe, once in a while, the future—not at the same time, of course.

For her, the present and the past blend together, the latter continually haunting her (as it does lots of women) through guilt. Because this requires stuff from two boxes to intermingle, men tend not to do guilt very well.

THANKS TO EVOLUTION

Remember, these things are not just momentary reactions to specific circumstances. Nor, for the most part, can they be changed. They’re hard-wired (or, in men’s case, hard-walled) into our brains, and for good reason.

Ages ago, before evolution worked this wonder, lots of men multi-tasked and harbored guilt. But those who did were all either slain by enemies or eaten by wild animals, both of which were, in those days, better equipped than they were to focus on the task at hand.

  Isn’t it a miracle how those respective strengths  
  have come to compliment each other so well?

And some women, before they’d mastered their comprehensive thinking, sensitivity and intuition, failed utterly at raising children and maintaining social connections. Neither those women nor their families survived either.

So here we are today, women and men, both products of that evolution, both very good at some things, not so good at others. Isn’t it a miracle how those respective strengths have come to compliment each other so well?

My wife and I once took a community education class in meditation. After a few frustrating sessions, she declared that, alas, she was going to be the first person in history to flunk meditation. She just couldn’t, she explained, shut off the flow of thoughts, plans and worries going through her head. Now, as I picture that endless tangle of wire in her head, I finally understand.

"A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t. 
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does." ~  SOURCE UNKNOWN

* Apologies to Dudley Riggs's Brave New Workshop, Minneapolis, for using the title of their hilarious comedy production.

THE BRAINS OF THE OPERATION – The Difference Between Women and Men

PART ONE OF TWO PARTS

Are you as confounded as I am about how the mind of the opposite sex works?
I suspect I’ve spent way too much time trying to figure this out. Usually it’s like trying to prove something doesn’t exist; it just doesn’t work.

Still, as with all of Nature’s mysteries, investments of a little awareness, curiosity and faith often are rewarded in small, yet significant, ways.

    ...it can go one of two ways. We’re left either 
    in awe (perhaps a better term would be utter 
    frustration) or in stitches.

If we’re lucky, we might come to understand and appreciate our partners better.
If not, it can go one of two ways. We’re left either in awe (perhaps a better term would be utter frustration) or in stitches.

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD

Comedian Mark Gungor has a brilliant act in which he sheds some very helpful— and hilarious—light on the differences between male and female brains.

On each side of the stage, about twenty feet apart, stand two pedestals. Atop each is a sculpted head, one of a woman, the other of a man. He walks over to the male bust and lifts off the top of the skull.

Inside are rows of neatly arranged little wooden compartments. Not only are they separate, he explains, under no circumstances can they be allowed even to touch each other.

In a man’s brain, he continues, everything—work, money, house, kids, sex—gets put into a different box. The guy can take a thought or emotion out of one compartment and move it to another if necessary, but it can only be in one box at a time.

What’s more, he says, men have no trouble at all shifting their focus from one box to another. They can even choose not to deal with any of the boxes at all. In other words they can, at times, think about absolutely nothing.

  Every thought, every emotion, is connected to  
  everything else. And it can never be turned off!

Now Gungor walks across the stage to the woman’s head. He begins explaining why women have trouble with men’s compartments, illustrating this by acting out a typical Mars-versus-Venus marital spat. Just as Venus is throwing up her hands in utter frustration, Gungor lifts off the top of the head.

The audience roars.

Inside, filling the entire cranium, is a tangled mass of copper wire—one continuous strand, he points out. Every thought, every emotion, is connected to everything else. And it can never be turned off!

(TO CONTINUE WITH PART 2, CLICK HERE)