Why Humans Are Bad at Multitasking?

It may not be uncommon to see someone typing out an email on their phone as they walk down the street, listen to music as they read the newspaper on the subway, or stare at a computer screen with multiple windows and tabs open. But despite constantly juggling different activities, humans are not very good at multitasking, experts say.

Dividing attention across multiple activities is taxing on the brain, and can often come at the expense of real productivity, said Arthur Markman, a professor in the department of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.

"There's a small number of people who are decent multitaskers — this concept of a 'supertasker' — but at best, it's maybe 10 percent of the population, so chances are, you're not one of them," Markman told LiveScience. "The research out there will tell you that there are a couple of people who are good at it, but it's probably not you.

But if practicing an instrument can improve a musician's performance, can the same be done to a person's brain to train it to be more effective at multitasking? Psychologists say it's unlikely, because multitasking involves actively thinking about more than one thing at a time, which can overload the brain's working memory.

"Human beings have a limited capacity for information processing, so after a point, it's not clear if we're capable of doing more," said Gloria Mark, a professor in the department of informatics at the University of California, Irvine. "It's possible that there is a learning curve, and people could train themselves to be better at multitasking, but most people won't be able to sustain that over long periods of time.

Biography: 

• Chow, D. (2013). LiveScience. Why the humans are bad al multitasking. Aviable 13th July of 2013 http://www.livescience.com/37420-multitasking-brain-psychology.html