Multitasking: Definition, Examples, & Research

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
What is multitasking, and can research tell us whether it’s good or bad? Read on to find out everything you need to know about multitasking.
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Are you one of those people who loves company when you have a task to do, or do you need silence and solitude to get work done? One of the most hotly debated topics among my peers in graduate school is what the best conditions are for focusing on work, and we all have different preferences for how much else is happening around us. Maybe you like the TV on in the background, or get energized by a study group, or find being in the quietest corner in the basement of a library is essential for your focus.​
This debate centers around an age-old question of attention, namely, can we truly give our attention to more than one thing at a time? And if we can, is that a good thing or a bad thing? This article will define multitasking – the most important example of divided attention I can think of – and try to answer our burning questions about whether dividing our attention is good, bad, or somewhere in between.

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What Is Multitasking? (A Definition)

Multitasking is putting your focus on more than one task at once, whether at exactly the same time or through repeatedly switching back and forth between tasks (Waller, 1997). Implied in this definition is that the tasks you are doing are not getting finished one after the other; for example, if I finish several tasks in short succession, I am not multitasking, even though I was working on multiple things.
 
To understand how multitasking works, two scholars have applied the idea of threaded cognition to our understanding of task completion (Salvucci & Taatgen, 2008). This theory states that we have different cognitive resources, such as vision, motor coordination, and memory, and that we can use just one or multiple of them to accomplish a single task. For example, if I am driving to the house of somebody I have visited just once before, I will probably draw on all three of those resources I just mentioned to accomplish the task.
 
However, the theory also makes clear that we will find it very difficult to use a certain resource on multiple tasks at once. This suggests that there will be limits on how effective we can be at combining certain tasks. For example, I can talk to my housemate at the same time that I chop vegetables for tonight’s stir-fry, because these two tasks require different sets of resources. I don’t need to think much about or listen to my chopping – it’s an automatic and familiar motion, meaning I can focus my thinking and listening on my housemate. However, if I tried to calculate conversions between milliliters and ounces in my hand while still talking to my housemate, I would likely perform worse at both tasks than if I had tried to accomplish them separately.

Opposite of Multitasking (Single Tasking)

The opposite of multitasking is single tasking, or focusing on just one task at a time. The research on multitasking suggests that one time we have trouble multitasking is when a certain task seems particularly important. If one task is pressing enough for us, relative to all the other tasks we have to do, we will naturally refrain from multitasking until it is complete (Salvucci & Taatgen, 2010).
 
My favorite example of this, as somebody who does not consume caffeine, is watching the morning routines of people who “need” their coffee. For some seasoned coffee drinkers (I don’t want to call them dependent, but they might be!), all other tasks in the morning routine must wait until the hot cup of coffee is fully in hand.

Examples of Multitasking

Each of us can probably generate many examples of multitasking from a given day in our lives. For example, today I packed for a trip at the same time that I put away some clean laundry, talked to a friend while running an errand, and tried to make progress on two different work projects at the same time. The first pair was the easiest, while the second was slightly harder (for example, I had to interrupt our conversation to talk to a customer service representative), and the third example was the least efficient.
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Another example of where multitasking abounds is in the morning routine of a family with young children. Picture a parent buttoning up their work shirt while reminding their child to brush their teeth. Meanwhile, downstairs the other parent is cooking breakfast, guiding another child through packing their backpack while also talking on the phone with the babysitter for that evening.

Is Multitasking a Myth?

The question of whether multitasking is a myth – whether it is not something we can actually do – has serious implications for all of our lives. If we are not actually multitasking, then what are we doing when we tackle multiple things at once?

As the theory I introduced above would tell us, it is quite possible to multitask. You can be driving down the highway and talking to your mother on the phone at the same time. You can jump back and forth between completing a work task and checking out what’s on clearance at your favorite online retailer. You can even be watching football and reading a book at the same time – trust me, I’ve tried.

I think the question of whether multitasking is a myth is really asking, “is it a myth that we can effectively multitask?” The answer is yes, to a point — while I may be effective at making phone calls while driving, if I try to watch football and read a book at the same time, I retain very little of what I’m seeing in either place.
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This is the heart of the limitations of multitasking: we have a limited capacity to put the same cognitive resource to work at multiple things at once. I can’t fully comprehend what I’m seeing on the TV screen and on the book page at the same time. It’s hard to switch back and forth between two very different projects that require the same critical thinking skills. And when I drive and talk, the cognitive resources I dedicate to the phone conversation are resources I am not using to make sure I am driving as safely as possible.

Multitasking in the Brain

What’s happening in our brains when we multitask? Without getting too deep into the details, multitasking draws heavily on the brain regions that power our attention and our abilities to self-regulate (Rothbart & Posner, 2015). These are key executive functioning skills that help us resist distractions, stay focused on tasks, and effectively switch between tasks. We know that these brain regions are important for multitasking because damage to these areas impairs people’s ability to multitask (Rothbart & Posner, 2015).

Research also tells us that people who score higher on measures of intelligence are better at multitasking, perhaps because executive functioning skills are a key component of overall intelligence (Colom et al., 2010). An even more important aspect of multitasking ability is one’s working memory capacity – the ability to hold in mind and use information over short periods of time. People with strong working memories are especially effective multitaskers (Colom et al., 2010). That makes a lot of sense to me – if you can remember more about each of the things you’re doing, you will have an easier time transitioning between them and picking back up with the next thing to do.

For more information about how multitasking and the brain are related, I recommend watching this video:

Video: What Multitasking Does to Your Brain ​

Multitasking Research (in Psychology)

What else can psychology research tell us about multitasking? First and foremost, for tasks that require serious concentration, such as learning and completing schoolwork, multitasking is not helpful – multitasking while trying to complete schoolwork is associated with lower grades and GPA and less information learned (Carrier et al., 2015). Multitasking also reduces productivity and performance quality in workplace settings, too (Buser & Peter, 2012).
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Unfortunately, multitasking in the form of using media while completing schoolwork is very common among students these days. In a study that observed students from middle school to college as they worked in their usual studying environments, the average student stayed on task less than six minutes before becoming distracted by their technology, and students were only on task about two-thirds of the time (Rosen et al., 2013). A review of research on this “media multitasking” found that it is negatively associated with children’s ability to control their own thinking, their academic performance, and their socioemotional functioning (van der Schuur et al., 2015).

Pros & Cons of Multitasking

Although I have thus far documented the negative sides of multitasking, some scholars argue that there are upsides. Some believe that practice with multitasking, especially for children, can promote mental flexibility, noting that there are some people who are exceptionally good at multitasking (Watson & Strayer, 2010). And since we interact with the world so often through an onslaught of many different information sources, often arriving simultaneously, some degree of multitasking in our lives is inevitable, so even if it is not the most effective way to get things done, it is an essential ability, and one that can be effective under certain conditions (Courage et al., 2015). For example, in environments that demand quick shifts among different roles and tasks, such as meeting the various demands of a waitstaff role, multitasking can be efficient and effective (Fischer & Plessow, 2015).
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At the same time, the larger concern expressed by many psychologists about the long-term effects of engaging in multitasking is that it may diminish our ability to give sustained and deep attention to one thing at a time (e.g., Carr, 2020). In other words, not only are we more error-prone, distractible, and possibly less efficient in completing demanding tasks when multitasking (Carrier et al., 2015), but over time, we may become worse at “single tasking”.

More Multitasking Facts

Here are some additional facts about multitasking, drawn from the many research studies conducted on the topic. 
  • First, we know that people whose minds naturally wander more often tend to be less efficient multitaskers (Ralph et al., 2014). 
  • Second, it may be the case that multitasking can make people more productive, but less accurate in their work (Adler & Benbunan-Fich, 2012). 
  • Third, although people of all ages tend to multitask in similar ways and at similar times, older generations tend to multitask less than younger generations (Carrier et al., 2009). In fact, the youngest generation is extremely effective at consuming more than one kind of media at the same time – a kind of extreme media multitasking (Rideout et al., 2010).
 
One study I found particularly interesting noted that people may multitask, particularly with media, for emotional gratification rather than because it helps them think (Wang & Tchernev, 2012). I think this hints at the possibility that what looks like multitasking can sometimes just be procrastination.
 
Finally, some people are really, really good at multitasking. One study found that about 3% of the population can complete multiple tasks at once without any loss of performance quality, while the other 97% of us perform worse when asked to do the same things simultaneously (Watson & Strayer, 2010).

Articles Related to Multitasking​

Want to learn more? Here are some related articles that might be helpful.​​​

Books Related to Multitasking​

To keep learning, here are some books to explore:​​

Final Thoughts on Multitasking

Okay, so multitasking generally makes us less effective at the tasks we’re doing. Maybe you’re not that surprised to hear this. I bet that you, like me, have caught yourself trying to do too much at once and felt a little guilty about it. For me, that guilt comes up when a friend or family member calls, and I try to keep doing what I was doing while also taking their call.

I encourage you to let go of the guilt you might feel in such a situation. These days, we are trying to do so much with our lives that the temptation to multitask is just too strong to consistently ignore. When you notice you are multitasking while trying to accomplish something important, see if you can slow down and ask yourself whether a certain task deserves your full attention. You might find it more enjoyable and less stressful to release yourself from the pressure to be more efficient and just take things one at a time.

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