In A.J. Jacob’s “The Unitasker”, he writes of his experience and the reasoning behind his decision to not multitask anymore. Multitasking had almost killed Jacobs and his wife while driving; not due to the popular cause of vehicle accidents, texting while driving, but only because his mind was not focused on his driving due to him trying to drive and listen to the radio and his “mind drifted from the road” (148). Many believe that if they are not doing more than one thing at a time they are not being as productive as they could be if they were doing two things. As Jacob says, “unless I’m doing at least two things at once, I feel like I’m wasting my time” (149). That usually goes for all people. Everyone is always doing at least two things at once, for example talking on the phone while driving (although that has now been made illegal), and even just texting while walking around campus). It takes a lot to do these things at once, but everyone still does it. Multitasking might make you feel like you’re being efficient, but it is actually slowing our thinking down as well as boosting up our stress levels (Jacobs). The popular phrase “quality over quantity” is very evident when it comes to focusing on one thing instead of trying to get all these different things done at once. “Our hopscotching brains make us more depressed “it’s harder to focus on the positive), less able to connect with people and form and conscience” (150). Multitasking denies us the ability to thoroughly look into things anymore.
Going back to Jacob’s near-death driving experience, I had a somewhat similar experience. I was driving on interstate 270 south. As I was going down from exit 26, I was thinking about what I was going to do when I finally met up my friends, where we would eat, what move we would watch, texting my friends about all this and by the time I stopped thinking about it all, I was already at exit 16 not knowing how I got there, not knowing if I had changed lanes with my blinker on, not knowing at all how the quality of my driving had been. Even the simplest thing such as thinking about plans for the day could take your mind off the task you should be focusing on: driving. This 24-hour period that I refrained from multitasking was definitely difficult because I had been so used to doing it even without thinking about it. Not listening to the radio or picking up phone calls or texts while I was driving was the most difficult. Driving is probably the most boring task as well as the most dangerous task any normal human being could do. Which is why focusing on it was so important. When you unitask and make driving the only thing you are thinking about, it makes the quality of your driving so much better as compared to even just listening to the radio while driving. After reading Jacob’s essay, I learned to meditate to help me unitask. “Studies show[ed] that perhaps the best way to improve your focus and learn to unitask is by meditating” (158). Meditating did actually help calm my mind and help me focus. Even as I am writing this paper, I have no music on, no television playing in the background. It is just me and my Microsoft word up. Jacob also writes “sometimes, you have to focus on the trees, not the forest” (165). This relates to Nicholas Carr who wrote “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” who said that he was once a scuba diver and now he is just a jet skier who just skims the top of the waters. People do not like to go in depth anymore; they do not want to look closely at details because they are not giving their undivided attention to one task.
During this 24-hour period of no multitasking, I have learned that I do focus better. I have realized that my connection with people was just so “on the surface.” For example, even when I video chat with someone, I am either surfing the net on Facebook or watching Glee or doing something else instead of giving that one person my full attention. When I video chatted during the 24-hour unitasking period, the conversation did not feel so disconnected and my mind was not running around everywhere trying to listen to the person talking and also trying to hear what was going on in Glee.
I’ve learned that being able to unitask is a skill. Focusing on one thing has brought me to realize how important it is to look thoroughly into things and how multitasking has disconnected me from so much of the world including the people in it.
- AJ Jacobs, "The Unitasker" from The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
