REAL LIFE NEWS: WOMEN REALLY ARE BETTER AT MULTITASKING
by Hazed
Everyone knows that women are better than men at juggling several tasks. We have to be, to cope with work, home, kids, spouse…
Often, things that “everyone knows” turn out to be rubbish when they are actually put to the test. But in this case it turns out that it’s true: women really are better at multitasking than men.
A study by UK psychologists shows that men were slower than women when switching between tasks, as well as being more disorganised. Men and women both struggled somewhat but men much more than women.
Dr Gijsbert Stoet of the University of Glasgow set up tests to see how both sexes faired when faced with a particular kind of multitasking: juggling many tasks in rapid succession, but not actually simultaneously. Real world examples would be workers moving between dealing with emails, answering the phone, and dashing in and out of meetings; or parents cooking a meal, looking after young kids and answering the phone.
For their first test they put 120 women and 120 men through a computer test. The participants had to switch between a counting task and a shape recognition task. When tackled one at a time both sexes performed equally well, but when the tasks were mixed up they all slowed down and made more mistakes. But significantly, men were even slower, taking 77% longer to respond, compared to women who took 69% longer.
Further tests gave similar results and showed that when under pressure, women are more organised than men. You can read the details at the source link below.
Given how modern gadgets such as phones and tablets distract you and encourage you to switch tasks, these findings are fascinating.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24645100
