To Multitask or Not to Multitask?

In this article, http://lifehacker.com/5041144/debunking-the-myth-of-multitasking, they talk about multitasking and if it's really efficient or not. In my English class during my junior year of high school, I read parts of the book The Myth of Multitasking: How "Doing It All" Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw they talk about in this article. The class was called 21st Century Studies and it was all about the media and current ideas that are out there nowadays. Multitasking was one of them. My teacher, who was a former professor at Yale, told us that, "Multitaskers are actually terrible at multitasking." And he was right! In the article and in the book, Crenshaw compares the ideas of "switchtasking" and "background tasking." Switchtasking would be trying to maneuver a few things at once and background tasking is like listening to music while doing homework.

So why is it that we suck at multitasking? What do you think would make it successful? Honestly, probably nothing. Being able to do two things successfully at once is extremely difficult. That's why when you try to study and watch TV, you might not get as good of a grade as if you studied without the TV on. And to the people who think studying with music helps them, and I'm guilty of it too, it doesn't. If you're focused on the music, how could you be focused enough on the material you're supposed to be studying? You couldn't.

Then if it doesn't work, then why do we do it? Because we're lazy human beings, that's why. Everyone's guilty of doing it. Sometimes it's not even our fault. Lifehacker talks about how offices are now set up so it's a big open floor with plenty of opportunities to be distracted. It doesn't matter if it's a co-worker stopping to talk to you or you're pulled into a nearby conversation, your work is being interrupted and you're now trying to multitask by paying attention to something going on around you and the work you should be doing. Therefore, you end up with social interactions, which is good, but you now have "half-assed" work in your hands. Not a good situation.