Can You Really Multitask? 

Hank: 'or maybe you're watching scishow while you're doing some calculous homework.' Me: *looks up and stares at screen* 'How does he know?????'

dude i cant even singletask

I wish more teachers understood this, because listening to lectures and note taking requires immense patience and concentration. I feel like I'm often falling behind other students I'm certain classes because I "can't multitask", but in reality, everyone's struggling just as much as I am and the teachers just arrogantly declare that we will have it harder in the future so we better get used to it. Taking notes is hard, it requires filtering out the useless details, and once you've finally structured what you need to write down, you've already missed a big part of the lecture and end up having a very unclear idea of what the class was about! Super frustrating. I wonder if it's just easier to sit back and listen to the lecture instead of fussing over notes and rely on my memory instead.

Multitasking with this on in the background... Editing a video, whilst eating a banana whilst listening to this, I wonder if I could sleep too!

But my brain is a ten-core core i7-6950x

Hank: "IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE HEARING WHAT I'M SAYING!" me: *tabs back to video* "what's he saying?"

As someone who multitasks A LOT (usually 2-5 tasks at a time) this was very interesting to me but I'd also like a lot more information on it. Things such as further research on if multitasking brains are different from single-task brains, if any tasks actually can work together (like listening to music while working) and which ones absolutely don't (like trying to read a book and watch a film at the same time), the effects of multitasking on stress levels both in people who generally prefer to focus on one thing at a time and in people who prefer to multitask as much as possible and maybe also what effects multitasking has on people with anxiety problems such as feeling extreme restlessness when doing 0-1 tasks.

I understand this point (and agree with it), but I have a question? What constitutes multitasking (the bad ineffective kind)? Working and watching tv - yes, sure. But that about working while eating? Or listening to background music or walking on a treadmill? Or that fidgeting, particularly for people with ADHD, is said to improve focus in some cases? Is that multitasking?

I can't repeat enough how glad I am that this channel exists. This is everything I could ever need to satisfy the bit of me that's sad because I chose another major instead of psychology.

Great example of psychological research that is applicable to policy. If we can't multitask, then we definitely can't text and drive safely and why it is not permitted.

This is the best science show online. You all are the only ones who include sources for the information that you deliver.

I wish that you could have taught me any subject while I was in school. You have taught me more in the past 4 years than I learned throughout all of highschool. You are the best Hank!

Hah! I'm working on Discrete Math, not Calculus. Got ya there!

Well for me multitasking is a great way to stay motivated in my work, I tend to watch a lot of series or youtube video, while I draw or do 3d model. seems to work well for me.

Hank: "On top of that, your pre-frontal cortex is easily distracted by new things, like kittens..." Me: *in utter astonishment I quickly shift attention from my cat playing, back to Hank*

"Go do your project and then come see Scishow" - currently procrastinating

i did this during the video itself, i wonder if the video to longer to watch

Wow! First SciShow Psych vid, and I already learned something practical & beneficial to my life. When I first started taking Accounting, I decided to listen to music while I read. However, I did not have a playlist set up. I stopped studying every 4 minutes to make a decision on what I'd listen to next. When I finished reading the chapter, I thought, "That was great! I got a lot done and enjoyed music while doing it!" Then I took the exam and learned super quick that Accounting would be much harder than I initially thought. Since then, I never thought music and work mixed for me. Until now. I could just set up a playlist ahead of time and listen to it while I work. No stopping, no switching between tasks. no decisions to be made. Just enjoying music while reading/working. Thanks! :)

Petting cat, listening to voice and reading text, with no mistakes. *Touché.* (I know that's not how it works, pedants)

My wife was texting me while I was watching this video. I had to stop it and rewind a couple times because I missed things. Great example of not being able to multitask.

i am studying for my test tommorow and i just distracted myself to this video, it was a slap in my face

Confession? I ALWAYS multitask while watching SciShow. For this episode, I was replacing a broken shoelace. Sometimes I'm eating dinner. Ironing clothes. Grinding on phone games. Sometimes, I focus my attention very intensely on a task, but I also don't like to have idle capacity, so it's not uncommon for me to jump tasks while waiting for a browser tab to load. I also hate eating without also doing a mental task at the same time.

I had to watch this for a college class and its wild to watch hank green for school, since back in 2010 I sent my high school teacher some of the vlogbrothers videos during their week of educational content before crash course and sci show were even a thing

This show is great! Thanks, Hank!

This is most useful video from SciShow I have ever seen. Thanks for making it.

I stopped filling in numbers and letters in my cross stitch app, to type out this comment. I listen to this, while on that app however, somehow helps me focus on what I'm doing, but I also can hear everything in the video. I've done this many times, with Lets Players, SciShow, SciShow Space, and Creepypasta's. I'd say that's multitasking in a way.

this dude keeps getting better with every single video god bless it

The use of awareness of research methodology and critical thinking awareness in this video is highly commendable. Sometimes brevity glosses over crucial epistemological foundations in research. Production quality 10/10.

I'm great at doing things in the background. Well, some things. Particularly rhythm games and math homework. I just drop focus, talk to people, sing songs... And when I'm done, I just assess my results. If I notice that I made mistakes, I just do the thing again without distractions. This usually increases my speed (and sometimes accuracy), and therefore productivity.

I'm a starbucks barista - yes, I can multitask. It's part of the job description.

Im so happy that hank is on SciShow Psych. He is the best host by a mile, i love Hank

... meanwhile, I'm commenting this w my left hand, doodling w my right hand, listening to him w my ears, chewing w my teeth, reading my science book w my eyes, and bouncing a ball w my feet lmfao.. no, this is not a joke

When I would meet with my occupational therapist with my mom and dad, I would play on my gameboy but still be able to tell them back everything they said when asked if I was paying attention.

i seriously love hank so much. he makes learning easy

I'm watching SciShow while doing maths homework.. Are you stalking me Hank??

I watched this while at work; well I don't actually watch, I listen. My boss knows I do this and says my productivity actually increased on days when I listen to videos/music.

It's Hank! Clearly PsychShow is best show.

When you actually have a project due tomorrow but you're watching scishow instead

*Watching this video AND reading comments at the same time!!! I'm a multitasking MONSTER!!!!!*

So this means that Sci Show Psych will continue? Yay!

I feel like I have always been bad at multitasking. Now it finally shows that people are just lying when they say it doesn't hurt their result.

Casually i just finished a reading about the detriments of multitasking and in that reading it also said that our way of thinking is becoming shallower because of trying to multitask, thus getting use to not concentrating in any task

One thing to add is that sometimes it doesn't count as multitasking if you're incredibly well practiced in 1 thing. for example expert tennis players have practiced their backhand so often that they can do it without thinking, leaving them free to also think a few steps ahead in the game.

"watching scishow while doing calculus homework" how accurate. :P

I was watching this while reading the comments and it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize the irony.

I'm a recruiter and every time a manager tells me they need "soemone who is good at multitasking" I want to say "that's not a thing!"

Thanks a million!

Sharing this channel with my professor :D

My dad yells at the tv every time a particular ad comes on where a girl claims she's good at multitasking. XD

This is interesting, I have always wondered about multi-tasking and I never went over this in my studies, but this is pretty cool. Makes sense as to why I can't really listen to most music and do work without concentrating on either on or the other.

Multitasking while listening to the video, reading the comments, and thinking about tomorrow's clinic...

well, thats why multitasking helps doing tasks you dont want to do. when i was studying i noticed that doing something fun every 15-30 min helped me stay focused longer in general. when only studying i got bored and tired quickly. switching to a fun social ativity for 5 minutes and then going back made me feel refreshed and i could study for another 20 minutes with ease. i would consider that multitasking efficiently ; )

Playing video games while watching youtube, that's how I've watched most of crash course and scishow is while I'm on a video game.

I want to show this to my boss and coworker, who seem to think wanting to focus on one task at a time is a crime against humanity. :-P

What about high stress jobs where you have to do multiple things at once. Like air traffic control, being a short order chef, or having three kids? There are people that are super good at those things. Is it because it isn't multitasking or are they just exceptions to the rule?

loving the new channel Hank. Can you please do a episode on "autopilot" how you can not concentrate on something but it still happens. E.G driving home after a long day at work, or doing the dishes.

this is really helpful! i've always wondered about this

Really like this channel

my constant struggle while interpreting simultaneously. it feels like doing ten things at once and it's exhausting after a short period of time.

This video is pretty much spot on! Humans are not very good at multitasking. Based upon the comments, it looks like some people might be skeptical; I see a few people mentioning doing homework and watching/listening to this video. I’m not sure if this helps proves the point of the video, but, Hank mentions that quality of performance goes down when you are trying to multitask, missing this point could be explained by doing homework and watching/listening to this video at the same time. I have seen a few people talk about legitimate situations of people multitasking (playing guitar and signing at the same time). Theories that speak to this are capacity theories, Kahneman (1973) first purposed that our attention, and thus ability to multitask, has a limit, and you can think of this limit as a pool of attention. The more tasks that are added to the pool the more your attention will get eaten up. The complexity of the tasks plays a major role as well; where you might have enough resources to do a few simple tasks (i.e. holding a phone while picking up garbage while listening to a podcast), you might not have enough capacity to more than one complex task (learning to play the guitar while listening to a podcast).

You CAN do 2 things at the exact same time, but they need to occupy diffent processing areas. You cannot do 2 things that require concious processing at the same time, but if one occupys the unconsious (autopilot) part (walking, eating, ...), another task can be done conciously.

I opened the back door to let the cat in as you said, "Kittens"... 😂 I think multitasking is possible with tasks you don't have to think about, but if you use working memory, it's not multitasking, it's prioritising.

How would this relate to something like listening to music while doing homework? would it make you less productive as well?

Technically, we are always multitasking. Our autonomic nervous system is constantly telling us to breathe and our heart to beat while we do literally everything else :)

"Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing" - Ron Swanson.

I don't like to do just a single thing at a time, even when showering, I'll be doing squats. When I'm at the computer I go overboard with 'multitasking', I've watched a video while eating, playing Pokemon, a mobile game and a computer game at the same time before. My grey matter must be severely lacking.

I don't believe you Hank, who says I can't do my geometry homework while I watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

I love you hank.

Good one!

Lol I’m watching this because it’s in my autoplay videos and I’m answering right now and drawing

Piano players can multitask. Working the pedal, reading two different pieces of music and two hands doing different things

thank you!!!

The problem comes in when your job includes 6 or so tasks that have to be completed, but because of the structure of it that makes you have to handle task 1 as a prioroity, but tasks 2-6 have to be done as time permitts inbetween task one over and over all day, (an office where I have to work with the public as well as other job duties) so I can't say "I will finish task one, then two..." or "I will work on task one for an hour, then task 2....". Employers have kind of come to expect it now and if you don't do it, then they don't want you there. That's not to mention all the times we get interrupted while trying to complete something. Something that should have taken me 15-30 minutes friday took over an hour because inevitably as soon as I sat down to work on it the phone kept ringing. :-( So I know it's absolutely not as efficient of a way of handling things. Just wish Employers realized that.

hmmm. my sisters used to use multitasking as a way of dealing with her ADHD. Perhaps is was the Dopamine that she was responding too. She does much better on meds when the insurance company does not take the coverage away. They also increase dopamine.

So, the key to focusing on a task would seem to be to break it down into subtasks so you get those little joyous hits of dopamine as you progress.

I think it depends on the kind of multitasking... listening and singing along to music makes me more productive while cleaning, but reading a book while watching tv delays me from finishing my book

new video: is hank actually green

This is probably amongst the most relevant to my question, which I'll probably keep asking until there's an answer. Can you do a holistic episode on ADHD?

OK I'll finish reading my book before watching any more of these.

As a person with ADHD, I would definitely be interested to hear more about this. On the one hand, I have definitely struggled with the urge to multitask while also seeing that splitting my focus was not good for either task. On the other hand, I have also had experiences where I seemed unable to focus on a required task unless I was also stimulating my brain with something else at the same time (e.g. I needed to edit some photos but couldn't make myself do it unless I also watched Buffy reruns at the same time). I suspect this example at least is not really multitasking, but something else... sometimes i experience something similar where I need, for example, to listen to music while I write but only at first -- after a certain amount of time, it's better to write in silence. But the music seems to help me corral my focus initially. I'm curious about this and the connections to multitasking and so on. (Esp ways for me to avoid ineffective multitasking, but still use this external stimulation/distraction in ways that sometimes seem to help...)

I hate it when I get asked about how well I can multitask in an interview, because I know that no one can multitask. Colloquialisms are fine, but when they become an object of qualification (like in an interview), precise definitions are needed.

There is some evidence emerging that some level of multitasking is possible so long as the tasks involved don't utilize the same portions of the brain. That's why you can sing along to your favorite tune and not miss a word while doing the dishes and not accidentally stab yourself in the hand. Texting and driving fail this test miserably, by the way, as both require very similar sections. Problem is, most of the things we think of when we think "I'm really good at multi-tasking" also fail that criteria.

cookinh eating and sci show goes very well together :)

I like how I listened to this while doing work 😂

I watch SciShow while working. And indeed whenever I need to concentrate, on work, I stop hearing and comprehending whatever the host is saying. Luckily, large chunks of my work involve pure muscle memory and can be done without having to concentrate on it.

You need to do an episode on why we get distracted or why we dont like to do large projects/amounts of work, because *that* would be really useful.

I'm going to have to stop with the bubble gum while I'm walking. :p

What's with tasks, where you can use your muscle memory? Examples: Eating and watching a video, knit and talking, typing/writing notes during a lecture, etc.

Hank, the example you're giving is about multitasking with two activities that need considerable focus. I bet people do fairly well doing an activity that requires a lot of focus, like watching Sci Show, and doing something requiring less focus, like folding laundry.

OK SciShow... it's 1 am... I'll single task "Sleeping", I got your point Hank... ;-)

"maybe you're watching sci show while doing calculus homework" spot on hank...

Obviously when people say they're multitasking they're referring to a different definition than what this episode is referring to. The brain is quite capable of beating a bowl of eggs and singing at the same time, that is multitasking.

So you're telling me that I shouldn't drive and watch SciShow at the same time?.. Well there goes my Friday night¿

Wow, this was completely new to me! Might have to rethink some of my work strategies... :D

Measuring happiness via smiling, and endorphins is like guessing wildly as to whether a person is in chronic pain by examining their hair follicles. And I would by experience argue the latter is a more scientific approach. People who are in chronic pain extremely often have hair that overnight turned grey. That is observable, and a strong correlation. However, chronic pain suffers often smile to mask their pain so as to fit in and be less exposed to other’s judgement. Severe chronic pain sufferers quite often (I am one) engage in a level of brutal excess activity to drive their bodies into generating endorphins to quench their pain for a time. Endorphins are more effective than prescribed analgesics. So high levels of smiling and endorphins correlate better with chronic pain, and masking behaviour than with happiness. And very few in chronic pain (physical or mental, or spiritual) could be described as anything other than miserable. Misery is the direct opposite of happiness in every culture on earth, even when those cultures express the happiness/misery dynamic differently, and acknowledge pain differently. Ohh and to see pain expression accurately just watch for micro expressions in the upper lip. I wear a stash so as to avoid discomforting strangers with my chronic crps pain, so I suffer less of the additional pain that results from dysfunctional social interactions. Ohh dear, those silly psychologists are measuring the wrong things once again says the anthropologist trained to observe the whole, and the detail rather than the focused nonsense of psychology.

Funny thing, I am actually working on my pre-calculus while watching this episode.

A lot of things can be called multitasking. (TL:DR at the bottom) Driving, operating the car while keeping track of where everything is around you and where you are going. Games are a great example. Many of them pretty much require you multitask to be successful. Starcraft, early game you need to keep track of your economy, watch your minimap, work on setting up your army, find your enemy, and avoid any trap they may try. League you need to keep track of general location of both junglers, kill minions, avoid and clash with your lane opponent. Keep track of who is doing good and bad, Choose what items you want to get that game in what order. Where are you in your lane what is the risk of pushing forward or should you pull back, ect. (both of those are higher level play not low level) So it definitely is more about the difficulty of each task and the number of them there are, because a large number of things done can be broken up in to many task. The more complex and difficult the worse you are going to get the more things you add to it. The faster you need to be the more apparent a slow down will be, Such as with driving. A slow down of even a bit can cause bad things because you need to be pretty fast in reacting to avoid crashing at times. Where as if you are writing it isn't as big of a deal as long as you go back over what you wrote because a mistake or typo there likely won't be as bad because you can go back and fix it. Or in many cases it is still completely understandable so it doesn't matter. Quality required at the end of your task is also something to consider. Higher quality you need the lower number of tasks you want to have to do at once. Lower quality the more tasks you can partake in. As in everything Moderation and thought should go into If you should do pretty much anything your thinking about doing. Are you doing something possibly dangerous maybe do less things at once so it is safer. Just need something done quality be damned well multitasking isn't as much of a problem there. I mean walking itself could be considered multitasking. You need to keep your balance, control your movement, decided where you want to go, and avoid obstacles. People often connect that with things like talking. Generally keeping your balance isn't a problem so an easy task but on something like ice it become much more difficult of a task. Controlling your movement is generally easy in say your house. In a windstorm though? If are unsure of where your trying to get how much difficulty is deciding where you are heading going to be? In say the dark how much harder is avoiding obstacles going to be? TL:DR I think a bigger problem is people think often thing of things like driving as one task instead of many that have gotten easier to manage at once. The more tasks you do at once the worse the quality of each task gets. The more difficult/complex the task is the more it demands overall. Different conditions make different tasks more difficult which makes the things your trying to do harder.

I'm actually watching this while doing math homework..haha!

This episode just helped me with sources for a section of my masters thesis. Heh. Thanks.

Thing is some tasks take a set amount of time- like watching a video, movie or listening to a radio show. You can't really speed it up by paying attention to it, so getting other stuff done at the same time seems to me not to be any loss. Those experiments they made that you mentioned were all with active tasks and I wonder if the result wouldn't be different if the tasks were more passive. Even if there is concentration loss on what I am doing, for example watching something, the time saved by multitasking could well make up for that attention loss, depending on the task.