Multitasking: Good or Bad?

Now that I am a college student, I admit that at times I get myself involved with multitasking. But if given a choice, which I have at other times, I engage myself with working at one task at a time.

In my opinion, if you want a good quality work, you should do one thing alone before the others or not at the same time because your focus is there, it's complete. Personally, I only do multitasking whenever there are still lots of things to do at a limited time or the deadlines are coming.

According to Panorama magazine May 1, 2011 edition article by Lilia Borlongan-Alvarez, "Well, we've got news for everyone: multitasking can actually result in wasting around 20-40 percent of our time, depending on what we are trying to accomplish, according to a study titled 'Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching' published by the American Psychological Association's Journal of Experimental Psychology."

"The study says multitasking doesn't work because a person can't actually focus on more than one task at a time. 'The biggest problem with multitasking is that it can lower the quality of our work. When we switch tasks, our minds must reorient to cope with the new information. If we do this rapidly, we simply can't devote our full concentration and focus on every switch. The more complex and technical the tasks we're switching between, the bigger the drop in the quality of work,' it [APA study] advises."

I certainly agree with the lowering of quality. But whether I would stop multitasking, I'm still not sure about that.

"Author Barry Schwarts even went further by saying multitasking is a hindrance to one's happiness. He says that given the media-rich landscape of the Internet era, it is tempting to get into a habit of dwelling in a constant sea of information with too many choices, which has been noted to have a negative effect on human happiness.

"Lastly, multitasking raises one's stress level making him overwhelmed and drained, to say the least."

Basically, nowadays, too many things come about and happen. I believe in some ways, these things affect our happiness because I myself cannot enjoy enough sleep anymore because of so many things to do at home and at school. I always sleep late and yet wake up early.

"On another note, multitasking may be a symptom of one's disinterest in a project or something he's not excited about."

I agree with the statement above. There will be times that this would happen. Another reason would include that I'm so tired that I really tend to ignore the things at hand.

Nevertheless, whenever I multitask, I check how well I have done compared and contrasted with the previous time I had multitask. Sometimes, I don't get satisfied with the outcome. There are other times that I am happy with what I have done. But one thing is for sure, I learn in my experiences and what ever I do, I always give the best that I can, do them with my heart and my best interest.

Now, is multitasking a good or a bad thing? We cannot answer this question with certainty. Each person is different. We have our own styles of doing something. It varies from person to person. So, let's ask ourselves, "Which is better, to multitask or not?"