Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Multitasking drains the brain

Richard Cytowic, neurologist, writes about multitasking. From “How Multitasking Drains Your Brain” (MIT Press Reader), adapted from Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age: Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload (2024) :

Keeping ourselves alert and conscious, along with shifting, focusing, and sustaining attention, are the most energy-intensive things our brain can do. The high energy cost of cortical activity is why selective attention — focusing on one thing at a time — exists in the first place and why multitasking is an unaffordable fool’s errand.
Related reading
All OCA multitasking posts (Raindrop.io)

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