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Comment by pipingdog | Hacker News Reader

A study by the University of Sussex found that multitasking (specifically, consuming multiple media sources at the same time) is _associated_ with reduced density in the grey matter of the part of the brain associated with empathy, cognitive control and control over emotions.

The study doesn't say whether one thing causes the other.

http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/50361/

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>The questionnaire consisted of two main sections: The first section listed 12 common media types and participants reported the total number of hours per week they spent using each medium. In the modified version used in the present study, 10 media types were retained from [2]: Print media, television, computer-based video, music, voice calls using mobile or telephone, instant messaging, Short Messaging Service (SMS) messaging, Email, web surfing and other computer-based applications. The item ‘‘video or computer games’’ was modified to include games on mobile phones. The item ‘‘non-music audio’’ was replaced with ‘‘using social networking sites’’. The changes were made to better reflect current trends in media consumption. The second section consisted of a matrix that involved participants indicating how much they concurrently used all the other types of medium as they used a primary medium. Amount of concurrent use was indicated on a scale of 1 to 4 (1 = ‘‘Never’’, 2 = ‘‘A little of the time’’, 3 = ‘‘Some of the time’’ and 4 = ‘‘Most of the time’’). The participants’ responses were first recoded as follows: ‘‘Never’’ = 0, ‘‘A little of the time’’ = 0.33, ‘‘Some of the time’’ = 0.67 and ‘‘Most of the time’’ = 1.

This seems like a bit of a silly study to me. It would be incredibly difficult for anyone in the software sector to say they aren't multitasking considering what they consider to be multitasking. I would be willing to bet most people use some forms of that concurrently, whether it's dealing with emails while in a web meeting or listening to music while coding.

FWIW I don’t do any of what you describe as a matter of normal practice.

Sometimes I will listen to a podcast while doing a routine task.

Otherwise I don’t multitask at all, for at least 90% of my working hours.

You never have a browser open with documentation/stackoverflow etc while coding?

Or checking and responding to emails while in the middle of fixing a bug?

Or managing texts from family members while doing whatever else on your PC?

Sometimes I stop coding and go look something up because I am stuck. At that point I’m doing a different activity: I’m research/learning/generally frustrated and not really coding.

For the others you bring up, I truly do not. I don’t text or email while I’m trying to do something productive.

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