Is Multi-Tasking Plausible?
December 16, 2025 2025-12-17 10:00Is Multi-Tasking Plausible?
By, K. Victor Daniel
Everyday day at IA, students are taking on heavy workloads and trying to do several things at once. All throughout Middle School and even elementary school teachers told us the same thing over and over until we memorized it. But is this a true statement to make? Today we will find out the age old question taught from our early lives.
“You cant multitask in life!” vs “You can always walk and chew gum.”
So which one is actually true? Lets find out and dig deeper. Now the human brain it cut into two hemispheres the left and right hemispheres, and your front lobe is split between these two hemispheres. The right hemisphere controls the left side of your body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of your body. Now why does this matter? When you are doing a task since most people are right handed you more often to use your left hemisphere to do this task, but if you’re reaching for something with your left hand to an object on your right and to another object on your left side with your right hand, you actually move a tad slower, as your brain is trying to process this cross action you are doing. Now if you grabbed the left object with your left hand and the right object with your right hand this “lag” doesn’t occur, as your brain is accustomed to doing this action. Now how does this relate to our topic of multi-tasking?
Brain “Lag” is what prevents most multi-tasking as you take the time to do the action and process this lag. For example, a person doing the same task you’re currently doing one at a time might do it quicker and more effectively, obviously in some tasks this “lag” doesn’t occur and you may be quicker then a person doing it once at a time, a prime example, walking and chewing gum. If you time two people walking the same speed to the same destination however one has to stop the chew their gum, the person who’s walking and chewing will obviously get there faster right? Of course they would. Now, same variables both people are riding a bike the same speed to the same destination however one is trying to identify every bird he sees on the way. Who will get there first? The person who’s not identifying birds of course! This is the defintion of high function tasks and low function task. The tasks that require less attention will be done at the same speed or faster if done together. However tasks that require a lot of attention will be done slower or in rare occasions at the same speed if done together.
But wait, if you can multi-task but also take longer to multi-task on some things then can you or can you not? That’s where the dilemma comes in, the difference between these is “High-Focus multitasking” and “Low-Focus multitasking” the less focus a task takes the better you can multi-task it, but the more focus it requires the worse you will preform at that task until failure. Even when some people think they are multi-tasking they are most likely doing an individual task but swapping between the two so quickly their brain doesn’t realize it fully. Like writing an essay and preforming and instrument, those tasks cannot be multi-tasked at all.
We asked some teachers and students their opinions on multi-tasking trying to see if everyone here at IA is a multitasker or a single tasker. First up some teachers say they believe in multi-tasking and others say they don’t believe in it. Ms. Beem our eXchange specialist states “I don’t believe you can effectively multitask, I try to do it pretty often, but whatever I’m doing doesn’t turn out very good.” Which supports the argument that humans can multitask but on minor tasks only. Next we asked Ms. Taylor her thoughts on the subject “I think some people are able to do it, but its a really hard thing to do for most people.” Next we asked some students if they think they are good at, or believe in multi-tasking. An IA Junior stated “I think multi-tasking is quite easy for me, since I do it pretty often with some of my assignments, I will say though for some others it is pretty hard though.” we then asked an IA Senior the same question and they stated similar responses to the teaches “I don’t think multi-tasking is a good thing to do, nor does it work out well for some people, I do think its possible for some people to multi task though.”
In an article written by L. Mark Carrier, Larry D. Rosen, Nancy A. Cheever, and Alex F. Lim, the researchers found that cognitive intense multi-tasking yielded lower results then doing the tasks separately, and low cognitive intense tasks being done at once yielded close to the same results of doing them together. This shows multi-tasking is indeed a plausible idea, however you have to identify “is this task going to be a burden on me if done with another task?”
In conclusion it depends on the person or activity if a person is able to effectively multi-task. A Senior might be worse at multi-tasking then a freshman, or a freshman worse at multitasking then a Senior. But as a good rule of thumb, it will be easier for you if you just do the tasks separately and the results will turn out to be better in the end. However if you’re really adamant about learning to be a better multi-tasker. We would recommend starting with smaller simpler tasks and then building up to more complex tasks. A good way to see if you’re good at multi tasking is spin your arms in 2 different directions. For example spin your left arm forward, and your right arm backward. If you can do that, congrats, you learned to multi-task! Until next time IA, make the day great, or, the choice, is ours.
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