Multitasking: is doing more really better?

I left off my last blog after making mention of multitasking. As I try to write this post, watch the last bit of Grey's Anatomy and have a conversation with my wife, a realization comes to me. I'm not very good at doing several things at once, and it's not just the fact that my wife is no longer answering me when I ask what 'what's-his-name' just said. Or to repeat her last few words.

However, a number of recent studies indicate that I need not hang my head in shame about this supposed handicap. One of the latest, by Stanford University researchers, suggests that multitaskers 'pay a mental price' for their willingness to surrender themselves to this modern occupational dynamic. Richard Nass, a member of the research team, went so far as to state that heavy multitaskers - those who regularly engage in a high amount of media multitasking - are 'suckers for irrelevancy' who are distracted by everything. Nass's group cites a number of tests that supported this and other claims.

However, there remain people who argue multitasking is the way of the future and that it's something we can, and must, get used to. In part, Dr. Noreen Golfman's espousal of this point of view inspired this piece. I enjoy her blog, 'Postcards from the Edge,' but today I beg to differ with her.

Dr. Golfman, I have two words for you that summarize my point of contention. Customer service. I utterly dare you to find any industry, business, or organization in which the overall levels of customer service are higher today than in decades past. I'm not speaking with regard to manners or behaviour, though. I am talking about errors of omission, lack of follow-up, and the general inability to take a service call from start to finish satisfactorily. I cannot remember the last time I had a customer service agent from a phone company, bank or public corporation call me back after promising to do so. The number and frequency of errors in billing, addressing, or any other variety of everyday functions seems to me to be an epidemic of colossal scale. This goes for management-level positions as well. And, I would wager heavily that ninety-nine percent of people reading this post are nodding along with me. So, Dr. Golfman, I disagree with your suggestion that the Stanford researchers have erred by presenting pseudo-scientific evidence that casts doubt on the wisdom of multitasking.

All you need to do is open your cable bill and see that your last payment is marked as not received, even though you sent it well before the due date. Then, try to explain your situation to the automated answering system that attempts to filter your call.

Multitasking is simply the catchword for doing more with less. In the drive to make larger profits and increase stockholder confidence or stave off calls of public mismanagement, businesses of every type are cutting back on employees. The work increases and the human resources needed to fulfill businesses' obligations decrease. This environment is the birthplace of multitasking. The technology we had hoped would change our lives for the better has now grown and matured, making us slaves to its impersonal efficiency.

The next time your bank sends your debit card to the wrong address, try to contact someone there, even a manager, and request they get back to you about the mishap. Chances are, the message will be lost somewhere in the buzz of checking email, scanning the news and holding a conversation while sipping a chai tea.

By the way, when did Gray's Anatomy end, and what's on now?