Detroit Free Press Hands-free phone not safer on road

"Drivers talking on cell phones are just as inattentive or likely to get into accidents as drunk drivers, even if they're using hands-free devices, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Human Factors.

People conversing on cell phones while behind the wheel performed just as poorly in a driving simulator as those with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08%, the level at which someone can be convicted of drunken driving in Michigan and most states, according to psychologists at the University of Utah.

Both handheld and hands-free cell phones impaired driving, the study found."

redux [12.11.05]
Science Daily Cell Phones, Driving Don't Mix

"Most people can rather efficiently walk and chew gum at the same time, but when it comes to more complicated "multi-tasking" – like driving and talking on a cell phone – there is a price to pay.

And no one, it seems, is immune."

Mei-Ching Lien, an assistant professor of psychology at Oregon State University. "Even with a seemingly simple task, structural cognitive limitations can prevent you from efficiently switching to a new task.""

redux [09.29.03]
CIO Magazine Why More Is Less

"BUSINESS CONDITIONS are so universally dismal that the corporate slogan for most American companies might as well be "We Do More with Less." That places a heavy burden on employees who are often stretched to their limits. Consequently, multitasking--both in the sense of doing more than one task at a time as well as switching among tasks--has taken on an added importance at companies that have experienced either layoffs or hiring freezes or both (usually both). Since these companies are now chronically understaffed, conventional wisdom decrees that those still on the job be as efficient as possible. Hence the need to juggle as many jobs as one can.

But there's a problem with multitasking. Not only does it take a personal toll on employees, it also doesn't work. "

redux [07.09.03]
The New York Times The Lure of Data: Is It Addictive?
[requires 'free' registration]

""It's magnetic," said Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard. "It's like a tar baby: the more you touch it, the more you have to."

Dr. Hallowell and John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard and a psychiatrist with an expertise in attention deficit disorder, are among a growing number of physicians and sociologists who are assessing how technology affects attention span, creativity and focus. Though many people regard multitasking as a social annoyance, these two and others are asking whether it is counterproductive, and even addicting."

redux [08.06.01]
NPR: Morning Edition The Thief of Time: Multitasking is Inefficient, Studies Show

""To do two things at once," said the Roman sage Publilius Syrus, "is to do neither." And this was 2,000 years ago, long before people tried to drive while talking on their cellphones and digging for tollbooth change and yelling at the kids and (ahem) listening to the radio.

Syrus may have overstated the case, but a new study concludes that performance does drop off when people try to accomplish more than one task at a time. Another sage -- William Shakespeare this time -- called procrastination "the thief of time." But it looks like multitasking is giving procrastination a run for its money."

CNN Study: Multitasking is counterproductive

"What are you doing right now as you read this article? Ordering supplies for the office from your distribution warehouse? Monitoring a screen for production equipment performance? Getting an e-mail back to your colleagues in the Denver office? Carrying on Instant Message conversations with three co-workers? Writing up a report in Word for the meeting on Wednesday? Eating the lunch you never have time to leave the desk for? Opening and reading traditional mail? Filing an in-house memo to Tech Services because your browser is acting up? Making a list of the clients you're expect to reach by close-of-business today? Trying to resize the fonts in the company newsletter so it fits on one page?"

David Weinberger The Price of Multitasking: Your Soul

"It's my assumption -- and I think it's as self-evident as human stuff gets -- that when we pay attention to something, we do so with certain affective qualities. That is, when we pay attention to the [Nazi Philosoper Heidegger pretending he Cares] cake that's now burning (because we were paying too much attention to the radio's description of Clinton's oral techniques or the shape of his member or his budget proposal's impact on macroeconomics or Hillary's oral techniques), we do so with some emotion, mood, or evaluation. And this is because attention isn't a dry and abstract or cognitive relation to the world. It's a relationship of caring. (Gosh, did Heidegger think of this before me? Damn! Wait, maybe I if I give it a made-up name I'll be able to trademark and claim it as my own thought. I've got it! Let's call it "e-careTM"!)"

"If this is true -- and you can take it from my sincere look and deep tone of voice that it is -- then it proves that humans can't multitask, at least not always. If attention were nothing but cognition, if it were like a flashlight sweeping over a dark world, then maybe we could multitask by wagging our attention back and forth. But if paying attention to two objects also means switching our emotions, feelings, preferences, mood and valuations, then, well, our souls just aren't enough like my sister Kate (who can shake them like jelly on a plate, for those of you who missed the Dave Van Ronk years of the folkie movement) to manage even rapid time slicing...except when dealing with matters that we don't really care much about."

Harold Pashler Task Switching and Multi-Task Performance

"We turn now to the limitations that arise when people attempt to perform two different tasks at the same time. While there is a large literature on relatively complex and continuous dual-task performance, the focus here will be on discrete tasks. The reason for this is that with more continuous tasks interference and switching are easily disguised for reasons that will emerge clearly below. Not surprisingly, limitations on simultaneous mental operations evidently arise at various different functional loci. Perceptual analysis of multiple stimuli can often take place in parallel, but when perceptual demands exceed a certain threshold, capacity limitations can become evident (Pashler, 1997) although non-perceptual factors (such as statistical noise in search designs) often masquerade as capacity limitations (Palmer, 1995). These limitations appear largely, but probably not entirely, modality-specific (Treisman & Davies, 1973; Duncan, Mertens & Ward,1997). Similarly, response conflicts arise when responses must be produced close together in time. These perceptual limitations are often most acute when similar or linked effectors are used, such as the two hands (Heuer, 1985)."