Multitasking Lowers IQ, According to Science

If you like to do many things at a time, you could think again---that is, if you are able to think by the time you reach that point. Research by Stanford scientists studying various groups of people related to their tendency to multitask on the basis of their performance, found that the multiple doers-at-a-time were a lot worse at it than those who pursue only one task at a time.

Such people exhibited more problem in organizing what they thought and filtering out information that was not useful. They also showed that they could not move from one task to another fast, according to inc.com.

Even efficiency came down when they found that multi-taskers were not able to pay attention, remember information, or move from one job to another as well as others who could follow one action at a time. "Overwhelm and lack of focus can cause mistakes and oversights, which can hurt you in the long run," according to forbes.com.

The reason for that is that the human brain is hardwired to focus only on one task at a time. As the brain is not able to juggle between multiple tasks, it would not be able pursue them.

Moreover, multitasking lowers IQ. One research at the University of London discovered that those who multitasked during cognitive actions showed a decline in IQ, as if they had actually consumed marijuana or stayed awake all night. A drop of 15 points for multitasking men actually brought down their IQ scores putting them at the same level of an eight-year-old!

Moreover, brain damage due to multitasking is not even temporary. At the University of Sussex, scientists found that when they compared the amount of time people spend on multiple devices, such as texting while watching TV, to MRI scans of their brains, those who pursue a lot of multitasking activities exhibited less brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, which is a region that encourages empathy as well as cognitive and emotional control.

More studies are needed to find out whether multitasking is physically harmful for the brain---compared to existing brain damage making people inclined to multitask---but still it is clear that it has many negative results.

Neuroscientist Kep Kee Loh, the lead author, said: "I feel that it is important to create an awareness that the way we are interacting with the devices might be changing the way we think and these changes might be occurring at the level of brain structure."

Hence, multitasking makes your slower and impoverishes the quality of your work. It will make you poorer in concentration, organization, and attention to detail. Pursuing it in meetings and social settings shows low Self and Social Awareness. Both these abilities are important in your performance.

TalentSmart after testing more than a million people, has discovered that 90% of top performers have high EQs. If multitasking damages the anterior cingulate cortex in the brain, which is crucial for good EQ, then it will bring down your EQ heavily.