by cgriswald on 10/26/18, 4:33 PM
I used to have 'buckets' I would stick things into, and they would stay there forever. Context switching was not a problem. Whatever I had put in that bucket was so strongly associated with the context, that when I switched, the bucket would be there waiting for me. I think I basically had built something like a memory palace before I had the concept of a memory palace.
Best way I think I can discribe it... it's almost like in my short term memory rather than trying to cram in every individual variable, I was just including a pointer to a struct containing the variables for those contexts. When I would call up that pointer, I'd get the entire struct and just keep going.
I'm not sure if it's age, alcohol use, stress, always-on internet, genetics, or what, but now I'm lucky if I can remember what task I'm in the middle of if I start thinking about something else while doing it. I find myself just as able to solve problems when I can remember things, but a lot less able to remember things, making me feel a lot stupider and/or slower than I used to be. Context-switching is a real challenge now. FWIW, I used to be A LOT better at tuning out the world/distractions than I am now; I feel like that changed when my kid was born.
by Kaveren on 10/26/18, 7:38 PM
> "in heavy media multitaskers because they have a higher probability of experiencing lapses of attention. When demands are low, they underperform. But, when the task demands are high, such as when the working memory tasks are harder, there’s no difference between the heavy and light media multitaskers.
I'm surprised no one brought this up. This seems to indicate that it's possible that multitasking only effects tasks that aren't very important or hard, and that they have no trouble concentrating on tasks which require involvement. Seems to be an argument here that heavy multitasking isn't nearly as bad as the rest of the article makes out?
by lordnacho on 10/26/18, 4:26 PM
Article says it's too early to draw conclusions.
It could well be that your memory gets worse because you rely on technology to remember things for you. And because you know how to do that, you can switch between more tasks.
There are stories about how people used to remember lots of things back when it wasn't so easy to store information. And also stories about tribal people who haven't yet developed literacy being able to remember lots of stuff.
by b1gtuna on 10/26/18, 4:31 PM
I try to avoid leaving a game or Youtube video open when I am "working". When I try to multitask, I get more frustrated. In the long run, the frustration turns into depression. So I try to tackle one task at a time nowadays. The difficult part is ignoring the phone. It is always within my view, if not within my arms reach. Just the sheer sight of my phone seems to take attention away from me. I don't know what to do with it though... I can't take it offline because my family needs to reach me. Perhaps a smartwatch would help?
by taneq on 10/26/18, 5:20 PM
Heavy multitaskers have reduced... what now?
What does 'memory' mean? In this case it's "simple memory tasks" but that's not what these people have optimised themselves for so it's unsurprising that they'd perform worse at it.
"Leading triathletes do worse at 100m sprint" Oh no.
by sys_64738 on 10/26/18, 3:32 PM
Multi-tasking it is not but task-switching it is with a heavy penalty for the context switch.
In other words, the sum of the task-switching is much less than focus on a singular task.
by Aloha on 10/26/18, 4:03 PM
So, I'm a frequent multitasker, but I generally arrange my tasks by likeness - so I'll do programming, then documentation, then design, then reading, and then perhaps troubleshooting. I guess it's a form of pipelining.
The context switch penalty between like tasks is small, the context switch between dissimilar tasks is enormous and generally will cause me to completely lose state on whatever I was working on, which requires me to rethread the needle, and restart.
by kzrdude on 10/26/18, 4:36 PM
Have they controlled for sleep? This year I've made so many gains by sleeping well, that everything looks like a sleep problem to me.
by rednerrus on 10/27/18, 12:08 AM
Memory is about focus and observation. It shouldn't come as a surprise that people who are not focusing or observing are not going to remember very well.
The same thing goes for the discovery yesterday that not being able to hear and see when you are older affects your memory.
by Eli_P on 10/26/18, 7:07 PM
Considering natural property of brain's neuroplasticity and adaptation, you can rewire and retrain your brain. The title is just saying: if you lift weights three times of yours, you can't go to marathon.
There're approved exercises to train your operating memory set like N-Back[1] and others, and bunch of free apps, I liked the least boring of them[2].
But, all that does at least minimum sense if you can change your working routine. These apps can be thrown to trash if you are a fullstack developer with infinite backlog of projects. And I can't maintain hanging myself on these training apps because it makes me feel like a lab rat.
Finally, I think the root of all that attention problems is boredom, anxiety and other social crap which never going to have been cured by any science. I wonder what results would be if somebody would try to find correlation on per country working time hours and playing online games. I wage that people who're supposed to focus on some boring work are either go find some freelance payload or kill some time playing games.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-back
[2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.owlie.brai...
by zappo2938 on 10/26/18, 4:01 PM
I reason I work in fields that require multitaskers is because I have very poor memory. The code I was given to work with is incredibly complicated. Few people can work with it. Not having good explicit memory forces me to organize my own work and detect patterns. I describe my ADHD not as being aware of one thing then another thing, but rather, being aware of all things at the same time. Do they compare memory before multitasking and then after multitasking?
by systematical on 10/27/18, 1:44 AM
Not even a processor can multitask. Why would you think humans can. I love explaining that to people and destroying the computers can multitask myth.
by jaxtellerSoA on 10/26/18, 6:08 PM
I would argue that humans can't multitask at all, period, full stop. At best we can rapidly switch what our brain is focused on.
by gamesbrainiac on 10/26/18, 10:41 PM
What I have found very help is keeping a log of everything that I am doing on a single task. So ever 15 minutes or so, I just write done a small paragraph or even a sentence of what is going on for a particular task. I find that doing this really helps me get back on track if I am disturbed or have to focus on something else for a short while.
by jcims on 10/26/18, 3:17 PM
I think i've multitasked my way out of having sufficient functional memory to remember multiple simultaneous tasks.
by known on 10/27/18, 6:59 AM
by kintai_bridge on 10/26/18, 10:40 PM
I've always been good in Jeopardy. I suppose I'm a well of useless trivia. Well, the other night I tuned in to Jeopardy after years of not watching the show. (Literally years because I've been busy with my job and life.) I was surprised at how quick I was, as before, and didn't skip a beat. Somehow I can retrieve the same data after stagnant use in my brain. The reason I'm pointing this out is because I'm also a classic multi-tasker at my developer job and can relate to this article. The difficulty I have is not from a memory decline, but something else. The nature of work has changed. It's like the quest for higher profits--same with work.
by agumonkey on 10/27/18, 11:39 AM
Is multitasking impossible ? Singer/player do multiple things on near parallel if not fully so.
by polskibus on 10/26/18, 4:30 PM
Seems like most managers should fall into reduced memory category. They have to juggle more things during the day (on average) than specialists. A random email, meetings, etc. all contribute to this. I also wonder how smartphone usage worsens memory loss.
by StanislavPetrov on 10/26/18, 8:54 PM
>but in reality our brains only allow us to do one thing at a time and we have to switch back and forth.
Completely unsupported and untrue supposition. Many people regularly perform multiple complex tasks simultaneously.
by chiefalchemist on 10/27/18, 1:46 AM
Wouldn't neuro plasticity dictate that something is gained from the loss? That is, as the brain re-wires itself memory is shifted to the more immediate need. That is processing power.
by matachuan on 10/26/18, 7:47 PM
Well my first thought on this is multitaskers have reduced their RAM size and I'm completely lost.
by Jenz on 10/26/18, 8:58 PM
Oops, I should be worried, but very shortly, I might have forgotten about this.
by andy_ppp on 10/26/18, 7:15 PM
I think I'll switch on
noprocrast then...
And maybe leave my mobile at home tomorrow!
by polskibus on 10/26/18, 4:34 PM
Shouldn't the title be updated to mention media multitasking?
by vectorEQ on 10/26/18, 3:16 PM
if you do multiple things at once you divide your focus over these things, and thus retain less of each. seems reasonably logical??
by Foobar8568 on 10/26/18, 3:11 PM
One thing I wonder, if IQ would play something in this...