Ustwo

I've always been able to work on several things at once, I never thought of multitasking as a difficult human skill, and I think the first time I've heard the word was back in my Amiga days with 'multitasking'.

For example, as I type this post, I have 3 patients being worked on, and I know what each one is doing and when I will be required next. At times I may have 5 patients being worked on, a consultation, and someone waiting on the phone to talk to me. This is not an uncommon thing just a normal day about 3pm. While writing this I went out and took photos on one person, explained their treatment to another and talked about the opera she is singing in, and gave a final check to a third. I would think that would fall under multitasking.

A couple of years ago I was watching a very well done show on human development and they said that women are 'multitaskers' and males are single taskers. I had never heard this and because I think of myself as a good multitasker I thought 'bullshit'. Since this show I've heard it mentioned more often, perhaps in relation to some research that got to the mainstream, perhaps from that show, who knows but its out there as one of those things that 'they' say.

I know some women who are very good multitaskers and some who are not, I know some men who are and who are not, I've just never seen a difference. So my question is, in your experiance is this a reality or is it just a myth?

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Sweetpea

I don't believe in gender differences. but that's me.

I believe that It totally depends on the individual whether or not they are good at multitasking or anything else for that matter.

That being said... i'm excellent at Multitasking, but i believe that's based on personality.

sweetpea

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Charlatan

Ustwo... it's because you are really a woman. Seek help.

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JustJess

I don't know... I am a multi-tasker, but I'm pretty masculine in many of my attitudes and thought patterns.

There is certainly scientific data (that I'm not googling) to back up that men and women do have certain genetically inherited strengths, different mental patterns... I don't know.
Quadro regularly watches TV, reads, plays guitar, etc. all at once. (Male, btw.)

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cyrnel

More women than men have dazzled me with their ability to handle multiple tasks at once, but I lost track trying to notice it and count at the same time.

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Ustwo

Expected, glad you took it.

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ratbastid

I actually don't believe there is any such thing as multitasking, really. There's an ability some people have (or have developed) to switch tasks quickly, and retain in short-term memory the current status of several things. But if you really look, you're only ever doing one thing at a time. You might have three things cooking at once, but what you're doing RIGHT NOW is what you're doing right now.

I one time manned the grill at a cookout, and at my peak burger-cooking period, I had 16 patties going at once, and I knew how long each had been on, how long each one had to go, how many people had made orders of what degree of doneness, who those people were, whether they had their bun ready to go, who had been fed, and who was still in line. The experience was very much like being at work--the job I was working at the time involved LOTS of fast reaction to LOTS of quick little tasks, and keeping up with dozens of statuses of things all at once. But I never really multitasked--I just page-swapped quickly.

(Edit: To, uh, answer the question... I've never seen a gender-related correlation with that ability.)

Rodney

In my experience, women _as a group_ tend to be better than men at detail work; they have more patience for it, concentrate better on it. That doesn't make them better multi-taskers necessarily; but it does mean that when multi-tasking routine or detail tasks they make fewer mistakes than would a man of similar multi-tasking tolerance.

I have visited on several occasions the 911 dispatch center in my area; the jobs pay well ($20/hr to start with great benes, no experience necessary, they train), and men and women both apply. Multi-tasking is vital and ongoing there, and they actually give you employment tests involving multiple stimuli to see how well you can track three or four different things at once. And when you look out across the floor at all the operators, you see mostly women. I asked the shift lead what kind of person does well at the job, and he said a lot of his best "raw' recruits tended to be experienced waitresses (and retired air traffic controllers.)

Poppinjay

I don't think that's entirely correct, Ratbastid. While tending to varioius burgers, or with various patients, or tasks, you are completing a task while your brain keeps count of the time involved in another task. For instance, if a burger is cooking, and you want to toast the bun, chop some onion, flip the burger, slice some tomato, and get out the ketchup, your brain will constantly be in a situation where it evaluates every smaller task related to creating an edible burger against the time it takes to perfectly grill the burger.

I think its no different than say, a PC spooling a print job while running a macro.

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Pip

I think it's another of those self-fulfilling prophecies. I've heard about this since I was very young, and it's fairly wide spread and "alive". Young girls are encouraged to do many things at once and be social and young boys are encouraged to focus on one thing at a time and be more introvert. Certainly it's more socially acceptable for a man to be really really good about one thing and hopeless about everything else than for a woman. (A friend of mine pointed this out years ago when we were discussing why there weren't that many female "guitar gods" - girls are simply not allowed to devote enough time on say guitar practise to become really good at it.)
I think a lot of men "hide" behind their supposed inability to do more than one thing at a time. Pisses me off every time they do.

On the other hand, I heard about an experiment where they filmed a stairway, and amongst those who were chewing gum a lot more of the men stopped chewing when they climbed the stairs. Could be an urban myth though.

Zeraph

What ratbastid said. I'm not saying what youre doing, Ustwo, isnt considered multitasking by most people, but I wouldn't considier it such. Or nothing more special than a better working memory and a stronger perception of order, (versus having a perception of chaos and feeling anxious) which would be a personality trait.

I suppose from an evolutionary perspective it would make sense that women would be better at "multitasking" since they were the caretakers, taking care of possible multiple kids while fixing food and taking care of their abode. Men on the other hand, would need to concentrate on one task for extended periods (stalking game.)

Now-a-days I think "multitasking" is mostly developed from environment, and therefor would have nothing to do with sex.

Cynthetiq

I have various tasks going on at many different times. I don't ask for it, but have been recently diagnosed as a highly functional ADD person. Sometimes I give a task to the rear to be solved or worked on and come back to it and the task can be completed or further along in the thought process than when I last checked it. The one time I took ritalin it removed the ability from me and I could only focus on one task at a time.

from what I can recall, Thomas Aquinas would walk with several scribes following him while he dictated several books at the same time.

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Charlatan

It was just too easy. It had to be done...

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Jinn

Wait what? My experience tells me the exact opposite. I've never seen guys trained to be introverted.. as a matter of fact it's usually attributed as a "weaker" trait.

My personality predisposes me to being a multitasker, I think mostly due to my interest in computers. They've trained me since a YOUNG age that some things take longer than others and I can get more done if I ignore the slow tasks while I work on the fast tasks. Doctors these days decided to call this a disease, ADD.. but I think it's a beneficial trait, myself. Computers take the "dumb" approach themselves, accomplishing multitasking by taking, say, 10 tasks, and giving 1/10th of their time to each. That isn't especially effective, but I think a lot of people "multi-task" that way. Empirically I'd say that men are better at the "prioritizing" sort of multi-tasking, where the most important tasks float to the front. However, I doubt this would hold up under any well-controlled research.

I'm with the "in our evolutionary history, yes. now? no" crowd on this issue. I bet if you went to a drug-based pysciatrist Ustwo he'd diagnose you with ADD and prescribe Ritalin, simply becasue "multitasking" as you quickly becomes "ADD" if you don't like having the ability.

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Toaster126

I think the sexes have certain inherent strengths and weaknesses. As such, perhaps multitasking is something the average female does better than the average male.

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Tamerlain

As has been mentioned already, what is commonly referred to as multitasking is really just juggling. The english language can be blamed for not supplying a proper definition.

The wife who cooks dinner, vacuums, helps the children with their homework and pays the bills is juggling multiple tasks, she is not multitasking. I take multitasking to be doing two things at the same time, which is impossible for a human being to do. A computer can do multiple things at once, a human cannot. Well no, I take that back. A human can do two things at once (walk and talk), but a human cannot focus on two things at once. It is impossible for a human to write two different sentences with each hand; it is impossible to solve two different mathematical equations on two separate pieces of paper, etc. Sorry for the tangent.

In comparing males and females, I have noticed that it is more common for females to be better at juggling tasks than males. This could be attributed to tradition - dad comes home from working all day and sits down to relax, mom is cooking dinner, helping kids with homework and cleaning; sociological - many societies place higher values on "bringing home the bacon" and as such this is a task which must be focused upon intently; or, as has been mentioned, environmental - men were expected to provide food for the tribe, which required intense focus to track and kill.

In general, however, I find that people who are better able to deal with stress are better at juggling tasks. It is easy to be overwhelmed by having to accomplish lots of things in a short period of time. The better one is able to manage one's time, the more successful one will be at juggling tasks.

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Frozen North

I dunno if there really are any major differences in genders. I mean, apart from the estrogen, testosterone and androgen, I wonder if our behaviors are mainly influenced by how our parents and others treat us because of our gender.

analog

I've never noticed it. For every man who can't multitask, i can name a woman with the same inability. I think that if it were really possibleto get a percentage of how many women are good multi-taskers vs. how many men, the percentages would be quite similar. Many people are assumed to be good multitaskers, but simply have good memory recall and good short-term memory, and can't multitask to save their lives.

I think the perception favors women because people look at a mother holding dry cleaning, a baby, and a shopping list and think "multitasking", when really you're witnessing a person taking care of several items in a linearly-ordered fashion, albeit possibly all held within memory, but not multitasking. Multitasking does not mean "able to memorize all the steps required, and then carrying them out in that order", which is what the scenario above depicts.

There are many cases of multitasking having to do with being a mother, or childcare in general, but i think the overall perception that causes favor to fall on women is the stereotypical "mother" image of the SUV or van full of shit from the day's rounds at various stores (which, like I said, is not actually multitasking).

onodrim

I am a female, and I can't multitask, at all. I need to give all my energy and focus to whatever is immediately facing me. If I'm in a situation where multitasking is required, I get really flustered and stressed. Needless to say, my job as a server didn't last long!

I have never noticed a gender correlation to multitasking abilities. It's more of an individual issue, as are most things that people try to assign to gender.

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lurkette

I've seen some statements that multitasking is "hardwired" in the female brain, but I've never seen definitive scientific statements as such. I think that men and women might have some different attentional styles that are probably partly cultural and partly biological. Oxytocin has been related to women's being able to focus their attention very closely on something, and maybe that has something to do with it, but I suspect that it's cultural as much as biological - watching the toddler while you're stirring the soup, that kind of thing. I know I CAN'T just watch TV without doing at least 2 other things - usually eating and checking email. And I can't work on a paper or something unless I have music. And I have been known to take notes on one computer and simultaneously write a powerpoint presentation on another. But I know men who are like that, and women who are very precisely focused on one thing at a time. Till I see a scientific study about it I don't think I'd put too much credence behind the gender difference theory.

--edit--
OK, so I found this, which doesn't entirely answer the question, but suggests that women aren't BETTER multitaskers than men; this doesn't really address their tendency to do it, though.

"I'm curious to know whether there's a gender difference. People say men focus on one thing at the exclusion of others; women can balance a lot better. Did you find that borne out in your study?

MEYER: In our particular study, where we brought both young males and young females -- college students -- into the lab, there was no evidence whatsoever of any gender difference in performance. Both the males and the females, under our circumstances, showed these types of extra switching time costs and inefficiencies in multitasking. Of course, it has been suggested, as you point out, that under some circumstances, perhaps there could be a gender difference or other types of differences between people having to do with their degree of skill, their personality type, and so forth. But insofar as we can tell under our particular circumstances, which are relatively representative of at least some daily life situations, there are no significant gender differences worth mentioning at this time, though this should be followed up by further investigation. "
http://www.umich.edu/~bcalab/article...cript2001.html

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Halx

My orthodontist looked like an asian Agent Smith.

In any case, I am a horrible multi-tasker, but I attribute that to ADHD.

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*Nikki*

I can multi task fine during sex other times I get a bit flustered.

Meditrina

As a mother of 2, I do many things. But never all at the same time. One right after another, yes. Sometimes it seems this goes on non-stop. The kids come to me for things more than their father, and my to-do list is longer than his. But I would never say that I am better at multi-tasking than he is. He is a very organized, detail oriented person, and gets done what he has to. And there are times when he does one thing after another as well. I think being an organized person who is capable of doing one thing after another is not gender specific, but personality specific.

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Marvelous Marv

I think in general, women have more patience for the interruptions inherent in juggling tasks. Although my job requires them, I dislike interruptions.

In regard to "no such thing as multitasking": Does anybody here sing and play the guitar?

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Tamerlain

I'm not really sure how to explain what I mean beyond what I already said. Obviously, yes, there are things people are capable of doing at the same time - walking and talking, playing the guitar and singing, the list goes on and on. There are also things that are not possible for a person to do at the same time - calculate two math equations at the same time, write two different sentences and again, the list goes on and on.

That said, I'm not sure how to categorize things a person is capable of doing at the same time and things they are not. Perhaps it may be easier to say that the human brain is a wonderful piece of engineering which we will never fully understand.

-Tamerlain

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Daniel_

I always figured it wasn't a myth, but it could well be a mythith.....

(sorry).

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Nimetic

Hard to say.

It could be.

Going slightly off topic though.... I have a slight "beef" with multi-tasking, because the term became very fashionable for a bit - particularly as with management.

Perhaps this was because microcomputer multi-tasking hit the media in the late 90's, and perhaps because of a few pop-pysch books. I seem to recall seeing something by De Bono... "Parallel Thinking" I think it was called.

To me, it seems self evident to me that doing multiple tasks at once will be less efficient than doing one thing at a time - except for those situations where there are significant wait periods involved (eg "boil for 10 minutes"), or where the tasks are simple - using a small fraction of our ability or leveraging practiced skills.

Getting back to the topic. I think that it's quite possible that women are, on average, slightly better at this. But then also - it might be that their life and career choices (ie environment) hones this ability slightly.

By the same token, some professions teach people to focus on a single task or thread of thought/logic at once.

So yeah. If there's an effect - it could be environment and training related.

raeanna74

I think that in many ways there are men with abilities generally attributed to women and visa versa. I think it's because our 'gender' based abilities run along a spectrum and are not exclusively male or female. I think this is evident in the sexual interests of people who are bisexual or homosexual.

There are two ways to 'multitask'. One is where you can switch rapidly from one task to another (which sounds more like what ustwo does with the patients) or doing more than one task at the very same moment.

For example: I can multitask by, talking on the phone, stirring the scrambled eggs, and handing a child a cup of milk at the very same time. I'm constantly multitasking but I think if I weren't forced to do it by the children that I watch I would not be as good as it as I am. I believe a part of multitasking takes some practice. This realm of ability would be hard to study because I believe that people who work in professions that require multitasking or people who've cared for children much would have had practice. Any ability can be learned.

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