I wish more teachers understood this, because listening to lectures and note taking requires immense patience and concentration. I feel like I'm often falling behind other students I'm certain classes because I "can't multitask", but in reality, everyone's struggling just as much as I am and the teachers just arrogantly declare that we will have it harder in the future so we better get used to it. Taking notes is hard, it requires filtering out the useless details, and once you've finally structured what you need to write down, you've already missed a big part of the lecture and end up having a very unclear idea of what the class was about! Super frustrating. I wonder if it's just easier to sit back and listen to the lecture instead of fussing over notes and rely on my memory instead.
I found that the best way for me to learn something complex was to read a section of the textbook and take notes as I did (usually just summarizing the textbook). Then when we covered the topic in lecture, I would take notes on anything new discussed in the class and ask any questions that I had while reading the textbook.
Actually that would be slower than normal human brains. Human brains have like 100 billion underpowered cores (we call them neurons). Hard to beat that with only 8 cores no matter how more powerful they are than one neuron.
As someone who multitasks A LOT (usually 2-5 tasks at a time) this was very interesting to me but I'd also like a lot more information on it. Things such as further research on if multitasking brains are different from single-task brains, if any tasks actually can work together (like listening to music while working) and which ones absolutely don't (like trying to read a book and watch a film at the same time), the effects of multitasking on stress levels both in people who generally prefer to focus on one thing at a time and in people who prefer to multitask as much as possible and maybe also what effects multitasking has on people with anxiety problems such as feeling extreme restlessness when doing 0-1 tasks.
I understand this point (and agree with it), but I have a question? What constitutes multitasking (the bad ineffective kind)? Working and watching tv - yes, sure. But that about working while eating? Or listening to background music or walking on a treadmill? Or that fidgeting, particularly for people with ADHD, is said to improve focus in some cases? Is that multitasking?
Nope, I don't think that's multitasking? Fidgeting is mindless movement for the most part? So I think it's almost like talking and walking. The walking doesn't take much actual thought. with things like adhd Fidgeting is usually used to help so that your brain doesn't try to switch back and forth between tasks. Or at least that's what I've gathered in research
Most of those actions are quite mindless in the sense we don't need to think about them to do them. Take breathing as an example, you can do nearly any action in the world and not have to think about breathing, this is because breathing is set on an automatic cycle within the brain when direct thinking isn't needed, it is much the same with walking and eating and various other actions. As for fidgeting i can't comment on that as i haven't got any knowledge about that :(, however i would say that fidgeting allows something for the brain to focus on so it is less likely to wander in attention.
polinamar I think that actions from different orders don't interfere as much, like washing dishes (motor skill) while talking with partner (cognitive skill), but there's still a little loss in the efficiency of both tasks. In the case of fidgeting, perhaps the movement helps ground the person in the current situation, thus easing their shifting attention; but in any case, here we're talking of someone who already finds it difficult to accomplish one task, so their efficiency is messured accordingly.
I can't repeat enough how glad I am that this channel exists. This is everything I could ever need to satisfy the bit of me that's sad because I chose another major instead of psychology.
Great example of psychological research that is applicable to policy. If we can't multitask, then we definitely can't text and drive safely and why it is not permitted.
Well for me multitasking is a great way to stay motivated in my work, I tend to watch a lot of series or youtube video, while I draw or do 3d model. seems to work well for me.
This is true. In some situations "multitasking", even if not really, helps you stay motivated.. while doing one thing at a time would result in an inefficient workflow because of the low motivation state of someone.
I wish that you could have taught me any subject while I was in school. You have taught me more in the past 4 years than I learned throughout all of highschool. You are the best Hank!
Hank: "On top of that, your pre-frontal cortex is easily distracted by new things, like kittens..." Me: *in utter astonishment I quickly shift attention from my cat playing, back to Hank*
Moth While the video itself plays in the same amount of time regardless of your attention, if someone were to quiz you on the content of the video and compare your results to the results of someone who watched without doing other tasks, there will probably be a measurable difference in understanding and retention.
Wow! First SciShow Psych vid, and I already learned something practical & beneficial to my life. When I first started taking Accounting, I decided to listen to music while I read. However, I did not have a playlist set up. I stopped studying every 4 minutes to make a decision on what I'd listen to next. When I finished reading the chapter, I thought, "That was great! I got a lot done and enjoyed music while doing it!" Then I took the exam and learned super quick that Accounting would be much harder than I initially thought. Since then, I never thought music and work mixed for me. Until now. I could just set up a playlist ahead of time and listen to it while I work. No stopping, no switching between tasks. no decisions to be made. Just enjoying music while reading/working. Thanks! :)
I had to watch this for a college class and its wild to watch hank green for school, since back in 2010 I sent my high school teacher some of the vlogbrothers videos during their week of educational content before crash course and sci show were even a thing
The use of awareness of research methodology and critical thinking awareness in this video is highly commendable. Sometimes brevity glosses over crucial epistemological foundations in research. Production quality 10/10.
Confession? I ALWAYS multitask while watching SciShow. For this episode, I was replacing a broken shoelace. Sometimes I'm eating dinner. Ironing clothes. Grinding on phone games. Sometimes, I focus my attention very intensely on a task, but I also don't like to have idle capacity, so it's not uncommon for me to jump tasks while waiting for a browser tab to load. I also hate eating without also doing a mental task at the same time.
My wife was texting me while I was watching this video. I had to stop it and rewind a couple times because I missed things. Great example of not being able to multitask.
This is interesting, I have always wondered about multi-tasking and I never went over this in my studies, but this is pretty cool. Makes sense as to why I can't really listen to most music and do work without concentrating on either on or the other.
I stopped filling in numbers and letters in my cross stitch app, to type out this comment. I listen to this, while on that app however, somehow helps me focus on what I'm doing, but I also can hear everything in the video. I've done this many times, with Lets Players, SciShow, SciShow Space, and Creepypasta's. I'd say that's multitasking in a way.
I'm great at doing things in the background. Well, some things. Particularly rhythm games and math homework. I just drop focus, talk to people, sing songs... And when I'm done, I just assess my results. If I notice that I made mistakes, I just do the thing again without distractions. This usually increases my speed (and sometimes accuracy), and therefore productivity.
When I would meet with my occupational therapist with my mom and dad, I would play on my gameboy but still be able to tell them back everything they said when asked if I was paying attention.
What about high stress jobs where you have to do multiple things at once. Like air traffic control, being a short order chef, or having three kids? There are people that are super good at those things. Is it because it isn't multitasking or are they just exceptions to the rule?
Jennie Ivins "There are people that are super good at those things." -This would need to be studied scientifically to determine what they are capable of and their individual efficiency. These individuals may be exceptional when compared to their peers in similar circumstances, but that in itself is a bias. Intuitively a flight controller that only guides 1 plane at a time will make less mistakes than an individual that controls 10 at once. An individual may be able to handle 10 planes within a manageable and acceptable margin of error, but they will inevitably make more mistakes than someone that has less tasks to manage. Keep in mind a job like an air traffic controller is much more complex than a simple, plane lands, takes off, or crashes senario. There is a much much larger system put in place where it takes several compounded layers of mistakes done in series before they lead to disaster. The pilots of the aircraft also have much of the same information and follow a protocol that effectively checks the system for mistakes. The types of mistakes made, I imagine, go largely unnoticed. Things like delaying a take off or landing on one runway because of focusing most of their attention on another runway, or mistakes in call signs that must be repeated, delays in responding to an approaching flight, etc. This type of intuitive reasoning applies anywhere. I don't believe the circumstances you've brought up relate to effective multitasking, but instead reflect on our perception of a socially acceptable level of accuracy.
Jennie Ivins Most jobs have systems in place to reduce the amount of multitasking. I am not familiar with air traffic controllers, but I imagine they have a way to prioritize flights or some kind of automatic notification system to alert workers, instead of relying on each person to keep track of every flight detail at all times. Chefs who have a lot of orders typically read the order tickets and collect/create the food based on the similarities between the orders, which I don't think is considered multitasking since the one task is to identify similarities between stimuli. Parents who try to watch many children while doing household chores will probably do a bad job, like the video describes. However, most parents (try to) find some way to occupy all of their children in order to get things done. The point is, high stress jobs should have a system or aid to reduce the need to multitask or else errors or injury will occur.
They have studied moms, they aren't really multitasking. If you are cooking and your kid comes up to you to ask you how to do a multiplication question, you stop cooking to help. What moms are a bit better at is not losing their place / forgetting what they were doing before they were interrupted. Air-traffic controllers are painfully aware that they can only do one thing at a time. In fact, people were killed when someone came up with the bright idea of putting all the information overlapping on one screen instead of many. "Change blindness" caused death.
@@00O3O1B Multitasking IS a real thing, don't don't on the bandwagon with all the Neuroscientists. Tests have proven that although people are pretty bad at multitasking, it's GENUINE parallel processing and not switching between tasks very quickly. There is a HUGE difference between "Humans are pretty bad at multitasking" and "Humans cannot multitask at all"
loving the new channel Hank. Can you please do a episode on "autopilot" how you can not concentrate on something but it still happens. E.G driving home after a long day at work, or doing the dishes.
... meanwhile, I'm commenting this w my left hand, doodling w my right hand, listening to him w my ears, chewing w my teeth, reading my science book w my eyes, and bouncing a ball w my feet lmfao.. no, this is not a joke
Casually i just finished a reading about the detriments of multitasking and in that reading it also said that our way of thinking is becoming shallower because of trying to multitask, thus getting use to not concentrating in any task
I think it depends on the kind of multitasking... listening and singing along to music makes me more productive while cleaning, but reading a book while watching tv delays me from finishing my book
This video is pretty much spot on! Humans are not very good at multitasking. Based upon the comments, it looks like some people might be skeptical; I see a few people mentioning doing homework and watching/listening to this video. I’m not sure if this helps proves the point of the video, but, Hank mentions that quality of performance goes down when you are trying to multitask, missing this point could be explained by doing homework and watching/listening to this video at the same time. I have seen a few people talk about legitimate situations of people multitasking (playing guitar and signing at the same time). Theories that speak to this are capacity theories, Kahneman (1973) first purposed that our attention, and thus ability to multitask, has a limit, and you can think of this limit as a pool of attention. The more tasks that are added to the pool the more your attention will get eaten up. The complexity of the tasks plays a major role as well; where you might have enough resources to do a few simple tasks (i.e. holding a phone while picking up garbage while listening to a podcast), you might not have enough capacity to more than one complex task (learning to play the guitar while listening to a podcast).
I watched this while at work; well I don't actually watch, I listen. My boss knows I do this and says my productivity actually increased on days when I listen to videos/music.
What's with tasks, where you can use your muscle memory? Examples: Eating and watching a video, knit and talking, typing/writing notes during a lecture, etc.
Thing is some tasks take a set amount of time- like watching a video, movie or listening to a radio show. You can't really speed it up by paying attention to it, so getting other stuff done at the same time seems to me not to be any loss. Those experiments they made that you mentioned were all with active tasks and I wonder if the result wouldn't be different if the tasks were more passive. Even if there is concentration loss on what I am doing, for example watching something, the time saved by multitasking could well make up for that attention loss, depending on the task.
As a person with ADHD, I would definitely be interested to hear more about this. On the one hand, I have definitely struggled with the urge to multitask while also seeing that splitting my focus was not good for either task. On the other hand, I have also had experiences where I seemed unable to focus on a required task unless I was also stimulating my brain with something else at the same time (e.g. I needed to edit some photos but couldn't make myself do it unless I also watched Buffy reruns at the same time). I suspect this example at least is not really multitasking, but something else... sometimes i experience something similar where I need, for example, to listen to music while I write but only at first -- after a certain amount of time, it's better to write in silence. But the music seems to help me corral my focus initially. I'm curious about this and the connections to multitasking and so on. (Esp ways for me to avoid ineffective multitasking, but still use this external stimulation/distraction in ways that sometimes seem to help...)
one of those activities is gonna lose out, i do the same and most of the time i find that the more focused on the work i get the more distant the music feels until sometimes i dont even realise the music's changed.
One thing to add is that sometimes it doesn't count as multitasking if you're incredibly well practiced in 1 thing. for example expert tennis players have practiced their backhand so often that they can do it without thinking, leaving them free to also think a few steps ahead in the game.
Hank, the example you're giving is about multitasking with two activities that need considerable focus. I bet people do fairly well doing an activity that requires a lot of focus, like watching Sci Show, and doing something requiring less focus, like folding laundry.
The problem comes in when your job includes 6 or so tasks that have to be completed, but because of the structure of it that makes you have to handle task 1 as a prioroity, but tasks 2-6 have to be done as time permitts inbetween task one over and over all day, (an office where I have to work with the public as well as other job duties) so I can't say "I will finish task one, then two..." or "I will work on task one for an hour, then task 2....". Employers have kind of come to expect it now and if you don't do it, then they don't want you there. That's not to mention all the times we get interrupted while trying to complete something. Something that should have taken me 15-30 minutes friday took over an hour because inevitably as soon as I sat down to work on it the phone kept ringing. :-( So I know it's absolutely not as efficient of a way of handling things. Just wish Employers realized that.
THIS. Story of my life right now, I work in an office environment too. Inevitably I have stretches of whole hours where I fail to complete a simple 2-minute task because every time I sit down to start on it the phone rings. God it drives me absolutely crazy! Sometimes I catch myself not only speaking and listening to the person on the phone, but taking notes and packing boxes and juggling another phone line that's on hold, all while trying to silently correct the new guy with hand and face gestures and listen in on the conversation taking place in the room just in case. I mean I can do it and it certainly feels like multitasking but it mostly feels like flying by the seat of your pants lol.
I wonder how this plays out in work environments. My past job required me to answer phones/questions while also performing computer task and occasionally having to write things down. Now trying to remember order numbers and last names in memory is complicated at times. But I was able to talk to people in person, while calling online support as well as typing in information on a screen to solve order problems which would be considered multitasking. I’m sure you can imagine the amount of noise i had to block out working customer service in a store that gets about a 1000 people a day.
I play video games while i listen to a bunch of youtube videos. Certain topics that come up, I can recall where I was in the game when I heard it. and viseversa, going to an area again, I recall some information I had heard when last I was there.
Technically, we are always multitasking. Our autonomic nervous system is constantly telling us to breathe and our heart to beat while we do literally everything else :)
I opened the back door to let the cat in as you said, "Kittens"... 😂 I think multitasking is possible with tasks you don't have to think about, but if you use working memory, it's not multitasking, it's prioritising.
well, thats why multitasking helps doing tasks you dont want to do. when i was studying i noticed that doing something fun every 15-30 min helped me stay focused longer in general. when only studying i got bored and tired quickly. switching to a fun social ativity for 5 minutes and then going back made me feel refreshed and i could study for another 20 minutes with ease. i would consider that multitasking efficiently ; )
well while i have to agree with the examples of multitasking that u gave, i am playing a game at the moment and listening to you all the same. Some of the tasks are easily doable simultaneously you just have to do the right ones.
Obviously when people say they're multitasking they're referring to a different definition than what this episode is referring to. The brain is quite capable of beating a bowl of eggs and singing at the same time, that is multitasking.
I don't like to do just a single thing at a time, even when showering, I'll be doing squats. When I'm at the computer I go overboard with 'multitasking', I've watched a video while eating, playing Pokemon, a mobile game and a computer game at the same time before. My grey matter must be severely lacking.
This is probably amongst the most relevant to my question, which I'll probably keep asking until there's an answer. Can you do a holistic episode on ADHD?
it does seem that two conscious tasks do go slower and become more difficult. but it also seems that subconscious tasks, like listening (to music), and a conscious task like painting can be symbiotic positively; whilst multitasking. of course listing to sci show/space/psych or other vlogs are more complex and require more of a conscious effort. so it would be more distractive than effective
I watch SciShow while working. And indeed whenever I need to concentrate, on work, I stop hearing and comprehending whatever the host is saying. Luckily, large chunks of my work involve pure muscle memory and can be done without having to concentrate on it.
I had the same question. It seems music may be one of the exceptions. I reckon its because music is a kind of script ie. its often set in stone, and you can learn to do one thing, like the guitar, and once you get that down to near pefection, you learn the other (the lyrics) and stick them together. Multitasking in the other sense like at work (trying to take notes, listen to someone, typing and thinking of a complex problem all at once) is more dynamic and they come out of nowhere, so you are thinking on your feet. This is probably harder for your brain to take in at once due to that dynamic nature of the tasks. Hope that made sense. Just a theory.
There's also the issue of what your body is doing and what your mind is doing. When you gain the ability to do things without "thinking" about them, concentrating can even throw you off. I'm not musical, but I'm guessing that people who sing and play an instrument, or sing and dance, at most "think" about one of the activities while their bodies know to handle the other. Sports is like this, too. A quarterback is not thinking about running around while looking for a receiver and calculating where he needs to throw the ball.
Agreed, thats another thing with instruments; you program your body movements too until it becomes automatic. Im guessing thats another different part of the brain though I may be wrong. Different parts working separately, but in tandem?? Any brain experts here? :]
I had a simpler scenario, where Hank had said I was concentrating because I heard him I happened to be playing a puzzle game. I know i was concentrating on the game but still heard Hank. If it is separated by senses is it maybe not multi tasking? Like can you taste, smell, touch, hear, see and think all independently of each other at the same time?
Hank: 'or maybe you're watching scishow while you're doing some calculous homework.'
Me: *looks up and stares at screen* 'How does he know?????'
K. 1234 He knows everything.
Hank sees all. Hank knows all. Hank is all.
K. 1234 *calculus
K. 1234 that's a well integrated comment, although perhaps a little derivative
we need to converge back into the topic at hand.
dude i cant even singletask
Upgrade to a dual core CPU.
Megalo Tops Upgrade your ARM.
Just download more RAM and reformat your CPU, you'll be triple-tasking in no time!
ur cpu is overheating. get a water cooled cpu
Monotask*
Multitasking with this on in the background... Editing a video, whilst eating a banana whilst listening to this, I wonder if I could sleep too!
D'oh!
You mean, eating a chom chom?
Precisely! How could I forget?!
I wish more teachers understood this, because listening to lectures and note taking requires immense patience and concentration. I feel like I'm often falling behind other students I'm certain classes because I "can't multitask", but in reality, everyone's struggling just as much as I am and the teachers just arrogantly declare that we will have it harder in the future so we better get used to it. Taking notes is hard, it requires filtering out the useless details, and once you've finally structured what you need to write down, you've already missed a big part of the lecture and end up having a very unclear idea of what the class was about! Super frustrating. I wonder if it's just easier to sit back and listen to the lecture instead of fussing over notes and rely on my memory instead.
I found that the best way for me to learn something complex was to read a section of the textbook and take notes as I did (usually just summarizing the textbook).
Then when we covered the topic in lecture, I would take notes on anything new discussed in the class and ask any questions that I had while reading the textbook.
Hank: "IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE HEARING WHAT I'M SAYING!"
me: *tabs back to video* "what's he saying?"
But my brain is a ten-core core i7-6950x
With hyperthreading
Actually that would be slower than normal human brains. Human brains have like 100 billion underpowered cores (we call them neurons). Hard to beat that with only 8 cores no matter how more powerful they are than one neuron.
You underestimate how inactive my brain is.
can still multitask better
calvinatorzcraft those don't exist
As someone who multitasks A LOT (usually 2-5 tasks at a time) this was very interesting to me but I'd also like a lot more information on it. Things such as further research on if multitasking brains are different from single-task brains, if any tasks actually can work together (like listening to music while working) and which ones absolutely don't (like trying to read a book and watch a film at the same time), the effects of multitasking on stress levels both in people who generally prefer to focus on one thing at a time and in people who prefer to multitask as much as possible and maybe also what effects multitasking has on people with anxiety problems such as feeling extreme restlessness when doing 0-1 tasks.
These are such good questions! I hope I come across some research on these intermixing
I understand this point (and agree with it), but I have a question? What constitutes multitasking (the bad ineffective kind)? Working and watching tv - yes, sure. But that about working while eating? Or listening to background music or walking on a treadmill? Or that fidgeting, particularly for people with ADHD, is said to improve focus in some cases? Is that multitasking?
+
Nope, I don't think that's multitasking? Fidgeting is mindless movement for the most part? So I think it's almost like talking and walking. The walking doesn't take much actual thought. with things like adhd Fidgeting is usually used to help so that your brain doesn't try to switch back and forth between tasks. Or at least that's what I've gathered in research
polinamar [this comment is here for reply notifications]
Most of those actions are quite mindless in the sense we don't need to think about them to do them. Take breathing as an example, you can do nearly any action in the world and not have to think about breathing, this is because breathing is set on an automatic cycle within the brain when direct thinking isn't needed, it is much the same with walking and eating and various other actions. As for fidgeting i can't comment on that as i haven't got any knowledge about that :(, however i would say that fidgeting allows something for the brain to focus on so it is less likely to wander in attention.
polinamar I think that actions from different orders don't interfere as much, like washing dishes (motor skill) while talking with partner (cognitive skill), but there's still a little loss in the efficiency of both tasks.
In the case of fidgeting, perhaps the movement helps ground the person in the current situation, thus easing their shifting attention; but in any case, here we're talking of someone who already finds it difficult to accomplish one task, so their efficiency is messured accordingly.
I can't repeat enough how glad I am that this channel exists. This is everything I could ever need to satisfy the bit of me that's sad because I chose another major instead of psychology.
Great example of psychological research that is applicable to policy. If we can't multitask, then we definitely can't text and drive safely and why it is not permitted.
Well for me multitasking is a great way to stay motivated in my work, I tend to watch a lot of series or youtube video, while I draw or do 3d model. seems to work well for me.
This is true. In some situations "multitasking", even if not really, helps you stay motivated.. while doing one thing at a time would result in an inefficient workflow because of the low motivation state of someone.
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Hah! I'm working on Discrete Math, not Calculus. Got ya there!
I wish that you could have taught me any subject while I was in school. You have taught me more in the past 4 years than I learned throughout all of highschool. You are the best Hank!
Hank: "On top of that, your pre-frontal cortex is easily distracted by new things, like kittens..."
Me: *in utter astonishment I quickly shift attention from my cat playing, back to Hank*
This is the best science show online. You all are the only ones who include sources for the information that you deliver.
"Go do your project and then come see Scishow"
- currently procrastinating
i did this during the video itself, i wonder if the video to longer to watch
Moth *took we can tell you were multitasking :)
Moth While the video itself plays in the same amount of time regardless of your attention, if someone were to quiz you on the content of the video and compare your results to the results of someone who watched without doing other tasks, there will probably be a measurable difference in understanding and retention.
+WardOfSouls Someone doesn't understand sarcasm ...
Wow! First SciShow Psych vid, and I already learned something practical & beneficial to my life.
When I first started taking Accounting, I decided to listen to music while I read. However, I did not have a playlist set up. I stopped studying every 4 minutes to make a decision on what I'd listen to next. When I finished reading the chapter, I thought, "That was great! I got a lot done and enjoyed music while doing it!" Then I took the exam and learned super quick that Accounting would be much harder than I initially thought.
Since then, I never thought music and work mixed for me. Until now. I could just set up a playlist ahead of time and listen to it while I work. No stopping, no switching between tasks. no decisions to be made. Just enjoying music while reading/working. Thanks! :)
i am studying for my test tommorow and i just distracted myself to this video, it was a slap in my face
This is most useful video from SciShow I have ever seen. Thanks for making it.
I had to watch this for a college class and its wild to watch hank green for school, since back in 2010 I sent my high school teacher some of the vlogbrothers videos during their week of educational content before crash course and sci show were even a thing
The use of awareness of research methodology and critical thinking awareness in this video is highly commendable.
Sometimes brevity glosses over crucial epistemological foundations in research.
Production quality 10/10.
This show is great! Thanks, Hank!
this dude keeps getting better with every single video god bless it
Confession? I ALWAYS multitask while watching SciShow. For this episode, I was replacing a broken shoelace. Sometimes I'm eating dinner. Ironing clothes. Grinding on phone games. Sometimes, I focus my attention very intensely on a task, but I also don't like to have idle capacity, so it's not uncommon for me to jump tasks while waiting for a browser tab to load. I also hate eating without also doing a mental task at the same time.
i seriously love hank so much. he makes learning easy
My wife was texting me while I was watching this video. I had to stop it and rewind a couple times because I missed things. Great example of not being able to multitask.
Petting cat, listening to voice and reading text, with no mistakes. *Touché.*
(I know that's not how it works, pedants)
Im so happy that hank is on SciShow Psych. He is the best host by a mile, i love Hank
This is interesting, I have always wondered about multi-tasking and I never went over this in my studies, but this is pretty cool. Makes sense as to why I can't really listen to most music and do work without concentrating on either on or the other.
Playing video games while watching youtube, that's how I've watched most of crash course and scishow is while I'm on a video game.
I'm watching SciShow while doing maths homework..
Are you stalking me Hank??
I stopped filling in numbers and letters in my cross stitch app, to type out this comment.
I listen to this, while on that app however, somehow helps me focus on what I'm doing, but I also can hear everything in the video. I've done this many times, with Lets Players, SciShow, SciShow Space, and Creepypasta's. I'd say that's multitasking in a way.
I'm great at doing things in the background. Well, some things. Particularly rhythm games and math homework.
I just drop focus, talk to people, sing songs... And when I'm done, I just assess my results. If I notice that I made mistakes, I just do the thing again without distractions. This usually increases my speed (and sometimes accuracy), and therefore productivity.
"watching scishow while doing calculus homework"
how accurate. :P
When I would meet with my occupational therapist with my mom and dad, I would play on my gameboy but still be able to tell them back everything they said when asked if I was paying attention.
this is really helpful! i've always wondered about this
What about high stress jobs where you have to do multiple things at once. Like air traffic control, being a short order chef, or having three kids? There are people that are super good at those things. Is it because it isn't multitasking or are they just exceptions to the rule?
Jennie Ivins "There are people that are super good at those things." -This would need to be studied scientifically to determine what they are capable of and their individual efficiency. These individuals may be exceptional when compared to their peers in similar circumstances, but that in itself is a bias.
Intuitively a flight controller that only guides 1 plane at a time will make less mistakes than an individual that controls 10 at once. An individual may be able to handle 10 planes within a manageable and acceptable margin of error, but they will inevitably make more mistakes than someone that has less tasks to manage. Keep in mind a job like an air traffic controller is much more complex than a simple, plane lands, takes off, or crashes senario. There is a much much larger system put in place where it takes several compounded layers of mistakes done in series before they lead to disaster. The pilots of the aircraft also have much of the same information and follow a protocol that effectively checks the system for mistakes.
The types of mistakes made, I imagine, go largely unnoticed. Things like delaying a take off or landing on one runway because of focusing most of their attention on another runway, or mistakes in call signs that must be repeated, delays in responding to an approaching flight, etc.
This type of intuitive reasoning applies anywhere. I don't believe the circumstances you've brought up relate to effective multitasking, but instead reflect on our perception of a socially acceptable level of accuracy.
Jennie Ivins Most jobs have systems in place to reduce the amount of multitasking. I am not familiar with air traffic controllers, but I imagine they have a way to prioritize flights or some kind of automatic notification system to alert workers, instead of relying on each person to keep track of every flight detail at all times. Chefs who have a lot of orders typically read the order tickets and collect/create the food based on the similarities between the orders, which I don't think is considered multitasking since the one task is to identify similarities between stimuli. Parents who try to watch many children while doing household chores will probably do a bad job, like the video describes. However, most parents (try to) find some way to occupy all of their children in order to get things done. The point is, high stress jobs should have a system or aid to reduce the need to multitask or else errors or injury will occur.
They have studied moms, they aren't really multitasking. If you are cooking and your kid comes up to you to ask you how to do a multiplication question, you stop cooking to help. What moms are a bit better at is not losing their place / forgetting what they were doing before they were interrupted.
Air-traffic controllers are painfully aware that they can only do one thing at a time. In fact, people were killed when someone came up with the bright idea of putting all the information overlapping on one screen instead of many. "Change blindness" caused death.
@@00O3O1B Multitasking IS a real thing, don't don't on the bandwagon with all the Neuroscientists. Tests have proven that although people are pretty bad at multitasking, it's GENUINE parallel processing and not switching between tasks very quickly. There is a HUGE difference between "Humans are pretty bad at multitasking" and "Humans cannot multitask at all"
Thanks a million!
I was watching this while reading the comments and it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize the irony.
loving the new channel Hank. Can you please do a episode on "autopilot" how you can not concentrate on something but it still happens. E.G driving home after a long day at work, or doing the dishes.
TheFireworksv1 Veritasium just did an episode on this last week, it's definitely worth a watch ;)
... meanwhile, I'm commenting this w my left hand, doodling w my right hand, listening to him w my ears, chewing w my teeth, reading my science book w my eyes, and bouncing a ball w my feet lmfao.. no, this is not a joke
I'm a recruiter and every time a manager tells me they need "soemone who is good at multitasking" I want to say "that's not a thing!"
I'm a starbucks barista - yes, I can multitask. It's part of the job description.
Casually i just finished a reading about the detriments of multitasking and in that reading it also said that our way of thinking is becoming shallower because of trying to multitask, thus getting use to not concentrating in any task
I feel like I have always been bad at multitasking. Now it finally shows that people are just lying when they say it doesn't hurt their result.
I think it depends on the kind of multitasking... listening and singing along to music makes me more productive while cleaning, but reading a book while watching tv delays me from finishing my book
Sharing this channel with my professor :D
You need to do an episode on why we get distracted or why we dont like to do large projects/amounts of work, because *that* would be really useful.
This video is pretty much spot on! Humans are not very good at multitasking. Based upon the comments, it looks like some people might be skeptical; I see a few people mentioning doing homework and watching/listening to this video. I’m not sure if this helps proves the point of the video, but, Hank mentions that quality of performance goes down when you are trying to multitask, missing this point could be explained by doing homework and watching/listening to this video at the same time.
I have seen a few people talk about legitimate situations of people multitasking (playing guitar and signing at the same time). Theories that speak to this are capacity theories, Kahneman (1973) first purposed that our attention, and thus ability to multitask, has a limit, and you can think of this limit as a pool of attention. The more tasks that are added to the pool the more your attention will get eaten up. The complexity of the tasks plays a major role as well; where you might have enough resources to do a few simple tasks (i.e. holding a phone while picking up garbage while listening to a podcast), you might not have enough capacity to more than one complex task (learning to play the guitar while listening to a podcast).
I think having stuff on in the backround calms us down like a good song or a funny joke!! it takes the stress away and helps us to think more clearly
I watched this while at work; well I don't actually watch, I listen. My boss knows I do this and says my productivity actually increased on days when I listen to videos/music.
What's with tasks, where you can use your muscle memory? Examples: Eating and watching a video, knit and talking, typing/writing notes during a lecture, etc.
Thing is some tasks take a set amount of time- like watching a video, movie or listening to a radio show. You can't really speed it up by paying attention to it, so getting other stuff done at the same time seems to me not to be any loss. Those experiments they made that you mentioned were all with active tasks and I wonder if the result wouldn't be different if the tasks were more passive. Even if there is concentration loss on what I am doing, for example watching something, the time saved by multitasking could well make up for that attention loss, depending on the task.
Really like this channel
My dad yells at the tv every time a particular ad comes on where a girl claims she's good at multitasking. XD
Piano players can multitask. Working the pedal, reading two different pieces of music and two hands doing different things
When you actually have a project due tomorrow but you're watching scishow instead
As a person with ADHD, I would definitely be interested to hear more about this. On the one hand, I have definitely struggled with the urge to multitask while also seeing that splitting my focus was not good for either task. On the other hand, I have also had experiences where I seemed unable to focus on a required task unless I was also stimulating my brain with something else at the same time (e.g. I needed to edit some photos but couldn't make myself do it unless I also watched Buffy reruns at the same time). I suspect this example at least is not really multitasking, but something else... sometimes i experience something similar where I need, for example, to listen to music while I write but only at first -- after a certain amount of time, it's better to write in silence. But the music seems to help me corral my focus initially. I'm curious about this and the connections to multitasking and so on. (Esp ways for me to avoid ineffective multitasking, but still use this external stimulation/distraction in ways that sometimes seem to help...)
How would this relate to something like listening to music while doing homework?
would it make you less productive as well?
one of those activities is gonna lose out, i do the same and most of the time i find that the more focused on the work i get the more distant the music feels until sometimes i dont even realise the music's changed.
One thing to add is that sometimes it doesn't count as multitasking if you're incredibly well practiced in 1 thing. for example expert tennis players have practiced their backhand so often that they can do it without thinking, leaving them free to also think a few steps ahead in the game.
*Watching this video AND reading comments at the same time!!! I'm a multitasking MONSTER!!!!!*
So this means that Sci Show Psych will continue? Yay!
Hank, the example you're giving is about multitasking with two activities that need considerable focus. I bet people do fairly well doing an activity that requires a lot of focus, like watching Sci Show, and doing something requiring less focus, like folding laundry.
cookinh eating and sci show goes very well together :)
The problem comes in when your job includes 6 or so tasks that have to be completed, but because of the structure of it that makes you have to handle task 1 as a prioroity, but tasks 2-6 have to be done as time permitts inbetween task one over and over all day, (an office where I have to work with the public as well as other job duties) so I can't say "I will finish task one, then two..." or "I will work on task one for an hour, then task 2....". Employers have kind of come to expect it now and if you don't do it, then they don't want you there. That's not to mention all the times we get interrupted while trying to complete something. Something that should have taken me 15-30 minutes friday took over an hour because inevitably as soon as I sat down to work on it the phone kept ringing. :-( So I know it's absolutely not as efficient of a way of handling things. Just wish Employers realized that.
THIS. Story of my life right now, I work in an office environment too. Inevitably I have stretches of whole hours where I fail to complete a simple 2-minute task because every time I sit down to start on it the phone rings. God it drives me absolutely crazy! Sometimes I catch myself not only speaking and listening to the person on the phone, but taking notes and packing boxes and juggling another phone line that's on hold, all while trying to silently correct the new guy with hand and face gestures and listen in on the conversation taking place in the room just in case. I mean I can do it and it certainly feels like multitasking but it mostly feels like flying by the seat of your pants lol.
Wow, this was completely new to me! Might have to rethink some of my work strategies... :D
Good one!
Lol I’m watching this because it’s in my autoplay videos and I’m answering right now and drawing
I wonder how this plays out in work environments. My past job required me to answer phones/questions while also performing computer task and occasionally having to write things down. Now trying to remember order numbers and last names in memory is complicated at times. But I was able to talk to people in person, while calling online support as well as typing in information on a screen to solve order problems which would be considered multitasking. I’m sure you can imagine the amount of noise i had to block out working customer service in a store that gets about a 1000 people a day.
my constant struggle while interpreting simultaneously. it feels like doing ten things at once and it's exhausting after a short period of time.
Multitasking while listening to the video, reading the comments, and thinking about tomorrow's clinic...
"Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing" - Ron Swanson.
I play video games while i listen to a bunch of youtube videos. Certain topics that come up, I can recall where I was in the game when I heard it. and viseversa, going to an area again, I recall some information I had heard when last I was there.
Technically, we are always multitasking. Our autonomic nervous system is constantly telling us to breathe and our heart to beat while we do literally everything else :)
thank you!!!
I opened the back door to let the cat in as you said, "Kittens"... 😂
I think multitasking is possible with tasks you don't have to think about, but if you use working memory, it's not multitasking, it's prioritising.
I love you hank.
well, thats why multitasking helps doing tasks you dont want to do. when i was studying i noticed that doing something fun every 15-30 min helped me stay focused longer in general. when only studying i got bored and tired quickly. switching to a fun social ativity for 5 minutes and then going back made me feel refreshed and i could study for another 20 minutes with ease. i would consider that multitasking efficiently ; )
well while i have to agree with the examples of multitasking that u gave, i am playing a game at the moment and listening to you all the same. Some of the tasks are easily doable simultaneously you just have to do the right ones.
"maybe you're watching sci show while doing calculus homework"
spot on hank...
im doing my french homework while watching this and i feel really called out rn
I want to show this to my boss and coworker, who seem to think wanting to focus on one task at a time is a crime against humanity. :-P
It's Hank! Clearly PsychShow is best show.
Obviously when people say they're multitasking they're referring to a different definition than what this episode is referring to. The brain is quite capable of beating a bowl of eggs and singing at the same time, that is multitasking.
OK I'll finish reading my book before watching any more of these.
Before watching this video let me tell only Sherlock can multitask. It's like your brain is opening another tab.
I don't like to do just a single thing at a time, even when showering, I'll be doing squats.
When I'm at the computer I go overboard with 'multitasking', I've watched a video while eating, playing Pokemon, a mobile game and a computer game at the same time before. My grey matter must be severely lacking.
This episode just helped me with sources for a section of my masters thesis. Heh. Thanks.
This is probably amongst the most relevant to my question, which I'll probably keep asking until there's an answer. Can you do a holistic episode on ADHD?
i imagine multi tasking isnt much more of a performance hit than being overly exhausted
Then you would be wrong
You can only pay attention to one thing at a time
I'm actually watching this while doing math homework..haha!
I don't believe you Hank, who says I can't do my geometry homework while I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Damn you, Hank! Thanks to you, I have to keep writing my thesis without my dopamine fix :'(
I was also multitasking during this video and forgot I was until the end.
So, the key to focusing on a task would seem to be to break it down into subtasks so you get those little joyous hits of dopamine as you progress.
it does seem that two conscious tasks do go slower and become more difficult. but it also seems that subconscious tasks, like listening (to music), and a conscious task like painting can be symbiotic positively; whilst multitasking. of course listing to sci show/space/psych or other vlogs are more complex and require more of a conscious effort. so it would be more distractive than effective
new video: is hank actually green
Pfft, I'm typing an essay with my feet while watching this video at the same time.... I have three keyboards and two are under my feet.
I watch SciShow while working. And indeed whenever I need to concentrate, on work, I stop hearing and comprehending whatever the host is saying. Luckily, large chunks of my work involve pure muscle memory and can be done without having to concentrate on it.
What about singing and playing an instrument at the same time?!
I mean I'm learning to play guitar and I have some problems with that. Please Answer!
you make a good point. lots of people can do that. future video?
I had the same question. It seems music may be one of the exceptions. I reckon its because music is a kind of script ie. its often set in stone, and you can learn to do one thing, like the guitar, and once you get that down to near pefection, you learn the other (the lyrics) and stick them together.
Multitasking in the other sense like at work (trying to take notes, listen to someone, typing and thinking of a complex problem all at once) is more dynamic and they come out of nowhere, so you are thinking on your feet. This is probably harder for your brain to take in at once due to that dynamic nature of the tasks.
Hope that made sense. Just a theory.
There's also the issue of what your body is doing and what your mind is doing. When you gain the ability to do things without "thinking" about them, concentrating can even throw you off. I'm not musical, but I'm guessing that people who sing and play an instrument, or sing and dance, at most "think" about one of the activities while their bodies know to handle the other.
Sports is like this, too. A quarterback is not thinking about running around while looking for a receiver and calculating where he needs to throw the ball.
Agreed, thats another thing with instruments; you program your body movements too until it becomes automatic. Im guessing thats another different part of the brain though I may be wrong. Different parts working separately, but in tandem?? Any brain experts here? :]
I had a simpler scenario, where Hank had said I was concentrating because I heard him I happened to be playing a puzzle game. I know i was concentrating on the game but still heard Hank. If it is separated by senses is it maybe not multi tasking? Like can you taste, smell, touch, hear, see and think all independently of each other at the same time?