14 DAY TRIAL // Investigators have recently determined that performing multiple tasks at the same time makes people distracted, and more likely to make an error in at least one of the activities they are performing.
For the purpose of this study, the research team behind the work looked at how people multi-tasked between watching TV and operating a computer. Right away, it became obvious that the person performing the tasks could not keep their minds in both places at once.
Participants in the new tests were put inside a room where they had access to both a computer and a TV. Researchers then followed their activities, and noticed that the test subjects tended to switch their eyes from one object to the other multiple times.
In fact, experts counted 120 shifts in glance (from the TV to the computer and vice-versa) in as little as 27.5 minutes. This is the equivalent of one shift every 14 seconds or so, PsychCentral reports.
“We thought [this rate] was going to be high, but the frequency of switching and amount of distraction going on was really shocking,” explains Dr. S. Adam Brasel, who is based at the Boston College Carroll School of Management.
He conducted the investigation together with colleague Dr. James Gips. In order to track the motions of participants' eye, the group used advanced, remote cameras. This enabled them to observe eye motions without the participants figuring out they were kept under surveillance.
“What we found is that when people try to pay attention to multiple media simultaneously they are switching back and forth at an astounding rate. We’re not even aware of what we are doing when in multimedia environments,” Brasel explains.
He goes on to say that, even after the team stopped taking glances shorter than 1.5 seconds out of the equation, participants still recorded a staggering 70 quick looks per 30 minutes. Interestingly, subjects were unable to measure their loss of attention accurately.
Most of them only believed they changed their attention about 15 times per 30 minutes, but in reality this happened nearly 10 times as often.
Additional details of the new work will be published in an upcoming issue of the esteemed medical journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.