Hold the phone! Stop the presses! Put down the curling iron! Turn off the TV! No really, stop doing all these things at once. Multitasking may seem like a good idea, but a recent study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reveals that it can actually do more harm than good.
According to the Daily Mail, studies show that multitasking or switching back and forth between tasks not only reduces efficiency levels, but can have lasting neurological, physical and social effects as well.
Professor Earl Miller of MIT studied the brain activity of volunteers as they performed several different tasks simultaneously. That study revealed that, though the volunteers were seemingly focusing on all tasks at once, their brains had zeroed in on only one or two tasks at a time.
This means there was minimal brain power being exerted for each task, and whatever power was being used, only came in brief, unproductive spurts.
"People can't do it very well, and when they say they can, they're deluding themselves," Professor Miller said. "The brain is very good at deluding itself."
He found that the information the distracted participants studied actually traveled to a different part of the brain than the information the other volunteers studied. Ideally, new information ought to go to the hippocampus, which has the capacity to store and recall information. In distracted volunteers, however, the hippocampus was not fully activated.
And as the brain works abnormally on overdrive to keep up with peoples' busy lifestyles, the body releases extra doses of hormones and adrenaline to keep itself going.
Being a little prickly is one thing, but it turns out that even the mere thought of multitasking can lower your IQ ten full points, according to Professor Miller.
Though this mental change is temporary, it's hardly harmless. The brains of kids who are brought up around constant and changing stimulants run the risk of becoming socially handicapped or developing high-functioning Autistic tendencies, similar to Asperger's Syndrome.
Gary Small, who wrote the book "iBrain," said, "With the weakening of the brain's neural circuitry, controlling human contact, our social interactions may become awkward, and we tend to misinterpret - and even miss - subtle, non-verbal messages."