MEMO FROM NARA

When we drive a two wheeler in a busy road, our eyes will be on the road to see the vehicles coming in front of us. At the same time we will be thinking of something connected with the future or the past. Similarly a car driver, drives the car, his foot goes to the break as soon as he sees a vehicle or a pedestrian in front of his car. He may be smoking a cigarette or attending a phone call in his mobile or hearing the day’s news or music in the radio. Such scenes are very common in our day-to-day life. This is the ability of every individual to do two or more things simultaneously or simply called as multi-tasking.

 

We all generally know that the brain can attend to only one task at a given point of time. Reading a book or magazine or seeing TV or hearing music while eating breakfast or lunch is the habit of many in the modern world. Why do people multi-task? It is said that there is no time. So we force our brain to attend more than one task at a time. How far such activity affects our life in the long run is a question no one bothers much. Still, we all muti task in some way or the other.

 

I feel that multi-tasking once practiced properly it continues to be a habit and no danger is envisaged. The brain is flexible to help the individual to do more than one task at a time with ease. These multi taskers do commit mistakes like petty accidents to big accidents some times. However they do not bother much because accidents even otherwise can occur.

 

Multi-tasking has become inevitable in today’s fast paced life. It could take a toll on our health, leading to conditions like short-term memory loss, weight gain and sometimes even death. In spite of knowing all these, women at home while cooking, multi-task a lot, keeping a cell phone between shoulder and ear, cutting vegetables, allowing the milk to boil in the stove, keeping the tap to run and fill the bucket asking the children to take bath…etc. Oh! The tasks are endless. If you want to know, you may watch at your home how the grand-mother or mother or sister performs the household works. You can list them. It is a wonderful exercise these women have practiced and good at it although sometimes they commit a mistake or two.

Various gadgets are available in the markets that help to multi-task in our day-to-day life. Washing machines, gas stoves, laptops / tablets, smart phones / i-phones and i-pods are some of the gadgets promote multitasking. I too browse websites while hearing music or news. It gives little pleasure in doing the task. Also a cup of coffee or a glass of red wine while reading a newspaper or net-browsing is great! Some say: “Doing one thing at a time and focusing on that alone is absolutely out of question.” Thus multitasking has become a part of life. The human can, at the most, focus on only two things at a time. There could be chaos if we try to do more than two things together. I disagree with this statement because every one of us directly or indirectly multi task every day. In general, the tasks are more than two! The fact is that multitasking affects focus. Brain has a cognitive limit. It performs better when tasks are done in a sequential manner than all at once. A multi tasker rushes at all times. Mono tasking is the best solution but multitasking is the one preferred by everyone today. So I think human beings are evolving and attaining super power!