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You’ve likely heard that multitasking is problematic, but new studies show that it kills
your performance and may even damage your brain. Research conducted at Stanford University
found that multitasking is less productive than doing a single thing at a time. The researchers
also found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information
cannot pay attention, recall information, or switch from one job to another as well as those
who complete one task at a time.
But what if some people have a special gift for multitasking? The Stanford researchers
compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps
their performance. They found that heavy multitaskers— those who multitask a lot and feel that
it boosts their performance — were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to
do a single thing at a time. The frequent multitaskers performed worse because they had more
trouble organizing their thoughts and filtering out irrelevant information, and they were slower
at switching from one task to another. Multitasking reduces your efficiency and performance
because your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once,
your brain lacks the capacity to perform both tasks successfully.
A study at the University of London found that participants who multitasked during
cognitive tasks experienced IQ score declines that were similar to what they’d expect if they had
smoked marijuana or stayed up all night. Multitasking men showed IQ score drops of 15 points,
resulting in a score equivalent to the average score of 8-year-old children. So the next time
you’re writing your boss an email during a meeting, remember that your cognitive capacity is
being diminished to the point that you might as well let an 8-year-old write it for you.
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【題組】29. Which of the following has the closest meaning to the word “diminished” in the last paragraph?
(A) declined (B) expanded (C) intensified (D) emerged