The new analyst has Slack, email and a spreadsheet open, with a podcast in one ear. Her manager is impressed: "I could never work like that." Many of us believe younger people are simply better at multitasking. The research tells a different story, and a friendlier one for all of us: nobody gets to switch for free.
It is an easy conclusion to draw. Young people move across screens with ease, and that ease looks like a special talent. Back in 2001, psychologist Joshua Rubinstein and his colleagues timed adults as they switched between tasks. Every switch cost a little time, and more when the tasks were complex or unfamiliar.¹ In 2017, education researchers Paul Kirschner and Pedro De Bruyckere reviewed the research on "digital natives." They found no evidence that growing up with digital media creates a special ability to multitask, and they concluded that multitasking while learning tends to hurt performance.² People do differ in how they handle interruptions, and in laboratory studies older adults often show somewhat larger switching costs. Still, the cost of switching applies to every generation, including the youngest.
The good news: focus is something a team can build together, for example with a 90-minute block each day in which notifications stay off.
Talent Takeaway
A small experiment for the next virtual workshop: one 20-minute block with second screens closed. Afterward, ask the group what they noticed. The answers are often a pleasant surprise.
¹ Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.27.4.763
² Kirschner, P. A., & De Bruyckere, P. (2017). The myths of the digital native and the multitasker. Teaching and Teacher Education, 67, 135–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2017.06.001