Two For The Price Of One?

 

You know that funny sound you hear when you're in the middle of a telephone conversation? The one that tells you that someone else is trying to reach you. It's “Call Waiting.” So you put the first party on hold while you speak to the second. Speaking as a first party, it's very annoying. I'm the one doing the waiting. I'm being ignored. If only you could multitask and speak to both of us at once without either of us being involved in the other conversation. But you can't. It's not just you, it's the technology also.

I have to admit it. I'm a man. I like to do one thing at a time. When I'm focusing on one thing I don't want to be distracted by another. I'm told that women can multitask better than us dinosaurs. Actually, I've been told that so many times I've always assumed it was true. But the more I think about it the more convinced I am that such a statement is an oversimplification. So let me muddy the waters.

I can walk and chew gum at the same time.ⁱ And my heart beats and my intestine digests as well. That's multitasking. Well, maybe not as we now think about it, but that all has to do with definitions. So let's start there. The word itself seems to have originated in 1966 and was originally a computer term referring to time-sharing. A computer could seem to do two things at once because it was so fast at following instructions that there was time available before the next instruction was given. So it could perform some unrelated task. Two jobs could be interleaved, and the machine seemed to be doing two things at once. It didn't fulfill the definition of multitasking now in use, but it seemed to. It wasn't really multitasking as we know it,ⁱⁱ but that's what was happening from a practical point of view. When multicore processors were introduced the computers could actually perform two jobs simultaneously, since the “cores” – little computers themselves – operated independently.

Since the late 1990s, when we started using the term to describe people, it has evolved to refer primarily to that – to the simultaneous performance of two or more tasks. No interleaving. The guy in the car over there speeding along at 80 while he's on his cell phone is multitasking. So's the one on the other side of you who has one arm around his date while his other hand is on the “necking knob.”ⁱⁱⁱ Municipalities don't seem to think that it's such a great idea – the telephone, that is. In fact it's illegal in a lot of places.^iv There is a general conviction held by legislators that a person cannot do two things at once, and that switching back and forth from one to another – interleaving – is risky. Have the lawmakers gotten it right for once?

Before dealing with that point, though, I'd like to list different kinds of activities as I understand them, to see how they fit in.

1. Unconscious: Activities like the heart beating and other functions concerning of which we have neither direct knowledge or control.

2. Automatic: Actions, like breathing, of which we are aware if we choose to be, and which we can control, if only for limited periods of time. And only if we want to.

3. Inconsequential: These are the kinds of things we do without thinking, but which are completely voluntary and can be discontinued at will. Chewing gum is a good example. As is walking. Or the common cases of talking on the telephone.^v

4. Simple, learned or memorized: Uncomplicated voluntary actions like driving on an straight empty road when it is not rush hour and the weather is clear. Also in this category are the singing of a familiar song, doing the laundry, and skimming a book or the newspaper.

5. Cognitive activities: Concentration is required in order to perform these activities successfully. Among these are reading (as opposed to skimming), doing a puzzle, making a calculation, arguing fiercely, holding a serious telephone conversation, driving during rush hour, brain surgery, and fixing a rocket engine (or, for that matter, a soufflé).

The reason for this categorization is that the first three classifications can, and usually are, carried out successfully without thought and can be done simultaneously – and as such they are true examples of multitasking by the current definition. Indeed, most of them can be performed along with acts that fall into the fourth and fifth groups.^vi It's a little chancier for the fourth group. Switching occurs here. That's between true multitasking and switching (interleaving) itself. If, for example, you're singing an old song, you may have to stop other activities and focus on long-forgotten words. Perhaps you'll remember them, but not at the same time as you're skimming the newspaper. So you have to switch back and forth.

But the fifth category is the most significant to the discussion. In Michael Frayn's play, Copenhagen, Margrethe (Bohr) gives to Walter Heisenberg a layman's^vii understanding of her husband's concept of complementarity, a principle of quantum physics: “... If you're doing something you have to concentrate on you can't also be thinking about doing it, and if you're thinking about doing it then you can't actually be doing it....” Another way of putting it is that, when dealing with things that require thought, you can't do two things at once. Like driving while texting or speaking on the telephone. Putting telephones and computers in cars is an unsound and even a reckless^viii act, but it probably sells cars and makes money for the manufacturers, and that's certainly more important than safety.

Cognitive activities require focus, and even a computer – however fast it may be – can only focus on one thing at a time. My wife often does crossword puzzles while watching television, but when asked what happened on the show she is often unable to answer. It's clear that the answer is unimportant to her – and that's the secret of “multitasking.” If getting something mostly right, if incomplete knowledge of what's going on is acceptable, switching back and forth is fine. And sometimes my wife starts on one thing and gets distracted along the way by something she sees, and which she must address before completing whatever she started.^ix According to recent studies, the corpus callosum, which is the site of communication between the two sides of the brain, is larger in women than men, so I guess they can switch faster than men. That means they can appear to be multitasking or, using the more recent definition, actually multitask faster. But until evolution has gotten around to giving us two independent “cores” for cognitive activities, we won't be doing real multitasking.

I can wait, though. I have something else to do.

Next episode: “Dear _______” – Life, death, and all the rest. Or at least some of it.

i     The first reference to that quotation that I can find is in 1956 and was said of a basketball player in Denton, Texas. Lyndon Johnson is credited with its origination later that year but he didn't use the word “walk.” Rather he used a somewhat more down-to-earth verb which needn't be included here. Will Rogers had been described in 1926 as the only man who could “chew gum and talk sense at the same time,” and as early as 1907 it had been said of women (remember, I'm not saying this – I'm quoting the Iowa City Daily Press): “A woman cannot talk and chew gum at the same time, anyhow.” The expression probably grew out of this.

ii     It was really doing only one thing at a time but doing it fast.

iii    Do they still have “necking knobs?” Or, for that matter, do they still have dates?

iv   It should be illegal in all. But it's not – yet. The telephone, that is. Can you imagine legislation against necking?

v    You may wonder why I place those important discussions you have in this category. I leave that to you to figure out.

vi    For example you can read while sitting in the bathroom. That would qualify as a form of multitasking.

vii   Laywoman's?

viii  Better, wreckful.

ix   I sometimes think she has a form of attention deficit disorder, being easily distracted and doing too many things at once to the detriment of all. Perhaps, however, this is a strength, allowing her (women?) to accomplish more – even if imperfectly – than I (men). After all, she noticed where I left my glasses and can help me when I'm totally befuddled.