Humans Can’t Multitask?

I was just reading a blog at InfoWorld discussing multitasking versus an uncluttered desktop, and Jon Udell makes a statement that I believe most of us take as truth, “computers multitask way better than people can”. As I was reading words that I had believed moments before, I realized that that is completely false.

Really.

Think about it. Your brain is constantly processing information. Just because it is not the task you are focused on, doesn”t mean it isn”t a task that you aren”t working on. You are more that the task that is currently on your conscious mind. Where is your hand? Is it too warm, too cold, or just right? What does the shirt you”re wearing feel like? What do your pants (or shorts, or dress, or kilt, etc.) feel like? Your body and brain are constantly processing that information, and so much else. The perception of computer”s apparent ability to process information on the web, calculate a spreadsheet, and respond to our keystrokes so efficiently, and thus make it seem so much more capable of multitasking is based upon a failure to recognize the information that we are processing in the background. It”s time to delete the idiocy of a computer being to multitask better than we can, and time to recognize that we multitask just fine.