Growing up I have often been told that rather than working on multiple things at once I should focus on one task before moving onto another. However, on most occasions, doing both things at once has saved me both time and stress. 

Multitasking is, as found by the American Psychological Association’s researchers, the brain switching between two or more tasks in rapid succession.

While that does not mean you are capable of managing everything perfectly at once, it does allow us to delegate tasks to make our daily lives more manageable.

With school, work, and personal responsibilities, individuals are forced to constantly balance activities within daily life. When it comes to students, they are forced to focus on multiple things within the short span or a class period just to do something simple like take notes on their teacher’s lecture while also asking questions to ensure their understanding and keeping track or deadlines coming up in one or more classes. After school, those same students find themselves occupying their time with sports or clubs that would require them to take an active role. 

Even when it comes to adults, multitasking is still just as important. Rather than having to manage homework assignments, now a person has work deadlines that are even less flexible than before.

High-intensity jobs like medical professionals and first responders, and even regular jobs, require you to be in charge of more than one thing at a given time.

While a person could assume that focusing on more than one thing at once can result in lower quality work, it should also be acknowledged that a person can improve their ability. In a research paper written by psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Paul E. Dux, he and his associates explain that repeated tasks, regardless of how many you are doing, lower the necessary brain activity needed to do them.

Regarding the stress that has been found to be linked with multitasking, I would like to ask is it the act of multitasking that causes that stress in the person, or is the situation that would require them to multitask? 

The examples given before have all been situations that naturally involve a certain level of stress. However, there are a lot more acts of multitasking that do not involve stress–listening to music while reading, talking to more than one person at once, watching YouTube while playing games. 

All of those situations require your brain to focus between more than one thing at once while not being involved in an inherently stressful environment. 

Multitasking is not a one-shoe-fits-all solution. Depending on the situation, especially time  constraints, you can understand why it is relied upon so heavily. Despite its drawbacks, it still plays an integral role in daily life.

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