JOIN USMulti-tasking vs mono-tasking
Multitasking and divided attention are two words that have similar meanings. In my younger days, I was told that it was more important to do a job well, rather than doing many jobs. In those days, multi-tasking was more viewed through Astavadhanis, who used to demonstrate their eight-fold concentration.
But having moved into the age of maniacal multi-tasking, now people have taken to it as duck to water. ‘Multi-tasking mummies’ has become the favourite topic for product ads- be it the white goods, cooking oil or detergents. It leads us to another topic for debate – Are women more efficient at multi-tasking? Experiments conducted on rats by Dr Christina Williams, the chair of the psychology department at Duke University, revealed that the male rats have exhibited more ‘tunnel vision’ than female rats and we may conclude that women use their minds to synthesise multiple cues from the environment, while men would rather use single cues.
Surprisingly many years back, when I tried an experiment with ‘mono-tasking,’ I found it equally or more difficult. I lived in Chennai with my maternal grandmother, while my parents and siblings lived in Madurai. I used to eagerly look forward to the school summer holidays when my mother and my older brother would generally visit Chennai. As I hero worshipped my elder brother, I used to keenly observe him and his habits and emulate them diligently.
During one such visit, I was surprised to discover that he did not talk at all during the entire meal time, a habit which he seemed to have newly acquired. When I enquired about it, he told me that he had learnt this practice from one of our cousins. According to him, it served many purposes. One could fully enjoy his meal in peace, avoid giving negative feedback on the food quality and preclude positive feedback of food from one’s mouth back into the serving vessels.
This logical reasoning really appealed to me and I also decided to practice this good habit. But soon I suddenly realised that I had to learn lots of sign language and miming techniques to cope with the arduous tasks of communicating with the person serving food about what I wanted, what I didn’t want, where it should be served, how much quantity, etc. A few more cousins soon joined this game and soon the dining hall began to reverberate with miming sounds like um(yes), um um um (no), aah (put it here), amusing the elderly audience. However hard I tried, I could not master this difficult art of mono-tasking. After my brother went back to Madurai, I quietly discontinued this practice.
During the next summer, I was curious to find out if my brother still practiced the good habit, but to my happiness and surprise, he told me that he too had discontinued it. The reason was that once he had found an insect of some kind in the sambar and he could not keep quiet anymore!