Why Multitasking Is Not Good?

Medical Video: STOP MULTITASKING NOW - Why It's NOT Efficient to Multitask (animated)

In this fast-paced era, we are required to be able to work quickly, meticulously, and smartly. Term multitasking of course we have often heard and if in the office. In fact, many people consider it multitasking as a skill or the advantages to be proud of.

Unfortunately, multitasking this is not good for our brain. Especially when we are preoccupied with laptops, tablets, or smartphone we while watching TV with family. As written on NationalGeographic.co.id, do multitasking while using gadget can damage the performance of our brain.

Multitasking with gadgets is the worst

A study by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark showed that changing focus from one screen to another caused the brain to store less information. Not only that, hormones that interfere with the thought process will be released, which can ultimately reduce your intelligence.

The researchers made research by asking respondents to use smartphone or their tablet while watching TV. They feel the activity multitasking this makes them more productive and efficient. However, the results of his research state that only a few can remember what programs they saw on TV.

In another study conducted at the University of London, England, respondents who were also tested experienced a decrease in IQ similar to the effect of staying up late at night. The decline in IQ alone reached 15 points for men.

“Multitasking can be done as long as someone is strong enough to do several activities simultaneously. But if he already has trouble doing several activities simultaneously, it can make him stressful. Usually when someone does several activities together, he doesn't really feel at that moment. "These moments will pass away as a result of our inability to focus," said psychologist Bernadetta Anjani, M.Psi, Psi to Hai-Online.com.

Back to the researchers in Copenhagen, they explained, when you focus on one activity at a time, the brain will absorb and store it in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, so that it is easily recalled later.

However, when you divert attention from one place to another, such as using a tablet or smartphone together with watching TV, information cannot be processed quickly. The information we absorb later will be sent to a part of the brain called the striatum, which is the part responsible for planning motion and motivation activities, not data. Researchers also warn that sending information to the striatum will make the brain store information in the wrong place.

What are the consequences for the brain?

Based on the above description, the consequences caused by multitasking is that you can suffer from long-term memory problems. The study found that multitasking related to technology can reduce brain performance in controlling muscles to control themselves. You can also suffer from disturbances of sensory perception, speech, and even emotions.

Not only that, the Danish study also stated that more than 80% of people own it smartphone feeling guilty when checking it, when another device's screen is in front of them.

If you do it often multitasking and then you feel like something is wrong with your ability to capture information or remember, you should immediately see your doctor.

It would be better if you also reduce your time in front of a computer screen, TV, and smartphone, or at least set aside special time to focus on each gadget without working on other things on a different screen.

Quoted from Health, when we do multitasking, we will lose important details from one of the work that is being done. But even interfering with other work to focus on other jobs is enough to make our short memories disturbed based on research conducted by the University of California San Francisco in 2011.

The researchers said that in a study involving a number of participants, people aged 60-80 years had difficulty choosing and remembering different image details compared to those aged 20-30 years.

They will be given two pictures, but one of them cannot be remembered correctly. As the brain ages, the researchers say it will take time for someone to be able to re-recognize and remember the details of a job.

READ ALSO: