Human multitasking

Human multitasking is the concept that one can split their attention on more than one task or activity at the same time, such as speaking on the phone while driving a car.

For other uses, see Multitasking (disambiguation).

Multitasking can result in time wasted due to human context switching (e.g., determining which step is next in the task just switched to) and becoming prone to errors due to insufficient attention. Some people may be proficient at the tasks in question and also be able to rapidly shift attention between the tasks, and therefore perform the tasks well; however, self-perception of being good at multitasking or getting more done while multitasking is frequently inaccurate.

Multitasking is mentally and physically stressful for everyone, to the point that multitasking is used in laboratory experiments to study stressful environments. People who are multitasking are worse at learning new information.

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