The best Massachusetts injury lawyer comments on the myths of multitasking that many of us believe and how to prevent multitasking from working against you.

As you are reading my blog you may also be watching the TV or cooking dinner. In our hectic day-to-day lives there are hundreds of things to do, and we all try to multitask to get things done fast.

But we are really just wasting our time. Whether or not we can admit it, the term “multitasking” is a myth. As a Massachusetts injury lawyer I find myself trying to multitask every day, in reality it doesn’t work.

As technology advances quickly and allows people to do more things at the same time, the myth has gotten even stronger. But scientists say it’s still a myth. And they have the research to prove it.

Massachusetts Injury Lawyer | A Human Delusion

Scientists say that when people claim they can multitask well, they are deluding themselves. The human brain simply cannot focus on more than one thing at a time.

But what misleads us is that we have the ability to shift our attention from one thing to the next with astounding speed.

As we are switching from one task to the next, we believe we are paying attention to everything around us, when in reality we are not.

Scientists say that there are numerous reasons the brain has to switch among tasks. One being that related tasks compete to use the same part of the brain.

Multitasking Working Against You

Writing an e-mail and talking on the phone at the same time is nearly impossible because the tasks are both fighting for the same part of your brain. They both involve communication through speech or written word, causing a conflict.

Our brains cannot take in and process two separate streams of information at the same time and encode them into short-term memory. When the information doesn’t make it to our short-term memory, it get’s transferred into long term memory for recall later.

But we often forget that information, and we have lost it.

Massachusetts Injury Lawyer | Texting And Driving Study

Multitasking can be innocent at home, but it is a whole new ball game behind the wheel with a cell phone. There are studies to prove just how dangerous it is.

A Communications professor from Ohio State University, Sheng Wang, found that when two subjects were shown two visual challenges (concentrating on images on a computer screen while texting) their performance dropped.

The subject’s ability to concentrate on the images plummeted by about 50%, even though they believed they had done just fine. And those who had to talk on the phone while watching had a performance drop of 30%.

People’s perception of how they are doing did not match up with how they actually performed. As a Massachusetts injury lawyer I found study particularly alarming because of its connection to texting and driving.

This study suggests that if a driver has to communicate with someone while driving, it is safer to call than text, but it is still unbelievably dangerous. Researchers have even found that hands-free phones are not safe.

Multitasking Facts

• Multitasking is hardest in the morning and late at night because the time of day has an affect on our reaction time.
• Multitasking is harder with age because the “working memory” part of the memory system is affected over time.
• Drivers talking on hand held or hands-free cell phones are 4 times as likely to be involved in a car crash.
• Activity in the parietal lobe (the area responsible for processing movement of visual images and is important for safe driving) decreases by as 37% while talking on the phone.
• A study directed by the University of Utah found that drivers using cell phones had a slower reaction time than those with blood alcohol level of .08, the legal intoxication limit.

Massachusetts Injury Lawyer | Closing Comments

My firm will continue to stand beside those who are injured in car wrecks due to all forms of distracted driving, such as texting while driving, talking on cell phones and browsing the Internet. Distracted driving is the number one cause of automobile accident deaths in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Cape Cod and Southeastern Massachusetts.

So take precautions. Store your cell phone away and keep both eyes on the road at all times.

But if you do get into a car accident and you may feel that you have been the victim of a distracted driver, then contact our office or call us at 1-800-200-7752. As Massachusetts injury lawyers, we can help you sort it all out.