Why Some Types of Multitasking Are More Dangerous

 

In a new study that has implications for distracted drivers, researchers found that people are better at juggling some types of multitasking than they are at others.

 From the 23 July 2012 article at Science News Daily

Trying to do two visual tasks at once hurt performance in both tasks significantly more than combining a visual and an audio task, the research found.

Alarmingly, though, people who tried to do two visual tasks at the same time rated their performance as better than did those who combined a visual and an audio task — even though their actual performance was worse…

…

Participants who gave audio directions showed a 30 percent drop in visual pattern-matching performance. But those who used instant messaging did even worse — they had a 50 percent drop in pattern-matching performance.

In addition, those who gave audio directions completed more steps in the directions task than did those who used IM.

But when participants were asked to rate how well they did on their tasks, those who used IM gave themselves higher ratings than did those who used audio chat…

Related articles

• Instant Messaging Found to Slow Students’ Reading (education.com)
• What Multitasking Does To Our Brains (lifehacker.com.au)
• What Multitasking Does To Our Brains [Productivity] (lifehacker.com)

 

Talking to death: texts, phones kill 16,000: study

Excerpts from a Reuters Health Information news item

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Drivers distracted by talking or texting on cell phones killed an estimated 16,000 people from 2001 to 2007, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

The estimate, one of the first scientific attempts to quantify how many people have died in accidents caused specifically by mobile telephone distractions, also suggests a growing number of these drivers are under 30.

“Our results suggested that recent and rapid increases in texting volumes have resulted in thousands of additional road fatalities in the United States,” Fernando Wilson and Jim Stimpson of the University of North Texas Health Science Center wrote in the American Journal of Public Health.