Focus!

The magician, David Copperfield, recently hosted an in-flight movie about how the brain deals with the thousands of bits of information it is bombarded with constantly. Scientists have noted one of the key traits we have as humans is to focus on one set of data, thought, or sense while tuning out all others.  This has helped us survive whether it be chasing down prey in prehistoric times or diffusing the ticking bomb on a McGiver re-run. We use the ability unconscious throughout the day. It allows us to tune out the background noise in a restaurant background so that we can have a conversation.  It is not so helpful watching TV when we become aware that dim buzz in the background is our spouse speaking to us.

Our brains cannot consciously process two things at once but instead relies on switching from one item to another. This trait has been long used by magicians (and pickpockets) in creating distractions to pull rabbits out of hats, remove the watch from our wrists, and put the pea in the unexpected shell.

This all came together in understanding ‘multi-tasking”, something many claim to do. I was always amazed to find my daughter listening to music while she did her homework while carrying on multiple “chats” with her friends. Not that we are much different. Before technology, we already had a long list of crazy things to do while driving - reading a newspaper, shaving, putting on make-up. Now we’ve added texting, watching movies, talking on the phone and web surfing to it.

In the documentary, scientists found a man in Sweden renowned for multi-tasking. To test his ability, the man was placed in a driving simulator with challenging road conditions and was given simple arithmetic problems (e.g., 2+3-1) and words (e.g.,“mouse”) to remember. Watching the experiment, I had no problem doing the arithmetic and remembered most of the words. But I wasn’t driving! The renowned multi-tasker got three arithmetic answers correct and could only remember one word.

The conclusion: There is no such thing as “multi-tasking”. Were it not already a medical condition, a more suitable name for “multi-tasking” might be “attention deficiency”.  I don’t know if I suffer from a physiological condition or if I am getting increasingly mentally lazy. But a word that my wife and I are increasingly telling each other these days is “focus!”. I am probably not alone.