Genius = monomania?
June 24, 2008
The article talks about research that suggests that ‘multitasking’, the ubiquitous term that has come to mean the ability to perform multiple focus-intensive tasks simultaneously might not be a such a boon after all. You might want to think about removing it from your resume (oh, c’mon, don’t pretend you didn’t). Various studies seem to suggest that humans weren’t meant to work on many tasks, all requiring their attention at the same time.
In fact, I would think it’s not possible to multitask, in the strictest sense. What we’re doing is rapidly focusing on one or the other tasks, switching back and forth between them.
In earlier times, people looked far less favorably at the preponderance to keep flutter from idea to idea, from thought to thought (from the article):
In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”
The following study, mentioned in the article, is categorized as ‘unlikely’, in my books. It does, however deserve a mention:
In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, that found, “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.” The psychologist who led the study called this new “infomania” a serious threat to workplace productivity.
What these suggest is that ‘infomania’ is the condition of not being able to focus on one idea, one task to the exclusion of all others at a time, while monomania, being able to doggedly stick to one line of thought, is the enabler of genius.
The article further argues that our brains are not wired to be able to multitask. Forcing them to do so forces them to adapt (or rather adjust) in ways that are detrimental. It affects our memory and recollection, and by not allowing us to solve as many problems as attacking it with a single-focus would, intelligence.
In day-to-day life, I have seen many examples that seem to support these conclusions. We all know the guy who gets pumped full of enthusiasm at the start of a new project, only to have all enthusiasm fall away as they face the prospect of steady, constant application. Haven’t you noticed those times when you seemed to be so busy, but would at the end of the day wonder, what exactly it was, you had accomplished?
We’ve all sat down to finish that project, only to have our concentrations broken by the ringing phone, the barking dog, the yelling mom, the ringing doorbell. Conversely, we’ve had periods of super-productivity, where we’ve been able to blast away through pure, focused energy. I remember the days in college when I’d be able to learn more in 2 hours of focused study, having woken up at 4 AM, than I had in the weeks prior (really). I’d have done jack-shit studying earlier. I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything, everything would take a major effort to remember and understand. But early in the morning, I was a sponge. Whatever I read, I would remember. I would comprehend all that I read, I would be able to skim through pages (I wonder if that’s a contradiction of the idea), and absorb at a staggering rate. I never fully understood why. Now it makes perfect sense.
From the article,
In one recent study, Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.” His research demonstrates that people use different areas of the brain for learning and storing new information when they are distracted: brain scans of people who are distracted or multitasking show activity in the striatum, a region of the brain involved in learning new skills; brain scans of people who are not distracted show activity in the hippocampus, a region involved in storing and recalling information. Discussing his research on National Public Radio recently, Poldrack warned, “We have to be aware that there is a cost to the way that our society is changing, that humans are not built to work this way. We’re really built to focus. And when we sort of force ourselves to multitask, we’re driving ourselves to perhaps be less efficient in the long run even though it sometimes feels like we’re being more efficient.”
Bingo.
So is the key to being more productive just being able to filter out noise? Being able to ignore the barrage of noise (emails, phone calls, colleagues), while prioritizing and focusing on one task?
