100 Things: Every Designer Needs to Know About People

46. People can’t Actually Multitask

I know it’s popular to think that you are multitasking, but the research is clear: people can’t actually multitask. (There’s one specific, possible exception that I’ll get to in a moment.)

For many years psychology research has shown that people can attend to only one task at a time. You can only think about one thing at a time. You can only conduct one mental activity at a time. So you can talk, or you can read. You can read, or you can type. You can listen, or you can read—one thing at a time. We are pretty good at switching back and forth quickly, so we think we are multitasking, but in reality we are not.

One Possible Exception

Research has uncovered one possible exception: if you are doing a physical task ...