100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People

26. People Can’t Actually Multitask

I know it’s popular to think that you are multitasking, but the research is clear: People can’t actually multitask. For many years, psychology research has shown that people can attend to only one task at a time. You can only think about one thing at a time. You can only conduct one mental activity at a time. So you can talk, or you can read. You can read, or you can type. You can listen, or you can read—one thing at a time. We are pretty good at switching back and forth quickly, so we think we are multitasking, but in reality we are not.

People Don’t Multitask—They Task-Switch

The term multitasking is a misnomer. People can’t actually do more than one task at a time. Instead, we switch tasks. So the term researchers ...