Contrary to common belief, recent studies reveal that it is impossible to do two things at once

Everyone is a master at multitasking, sort of. It really depends on the way people look at it. The concept of multitasking involves doing many different things simultaneously. In a way, humans do that every second. People breathe and walk at the same time; they form sentences in their heads as they speak; and it'd be difficult to find people without a stack of magazines in their bathroom to read while doing their business.

But looking at it from a different angle, multitasking is impossible. If multitasking constitutes the ability to crunch numbers for math homework, type up an essay, conjugate Spanish verbs, all the while playing piano and eating dinner, we'd not only have to strap on three pairs of extra arms, but we'd have to train our minds to think several thoughts at the same time in order to transfer them into actions. In an article published on Sept. 16 in Bloomberg Businessweek, Elizabeth Poposki, assistant professor of psychology at Purdue University, stated that the brain is physically unable to think of two things at once. She compared the mind to a computer going back and forth between the various programs.

"Multitasking is about doing a lot of things at the same time, and I don't think that's possible," said Student Advocate Richard Prinz. "You might be doing a lot of things in the same half hour, but you do five minutes here, five minutes there, and then you go back. And I think if the mind is focused, you can do that without any problem."

He explained that when people are doing something, they should immerse themselves completely in that one activity without being distracted by other work.

"There's a real value of having one point of concentration in order to be effective, to be able to gain insight and really understand something," Prinz said.  For example, if someone is doing math homework, he or she shouldn't be wishing that they were studying for another test or playing video games. Prinz is convinced that in order to be truly effective, the mind has to be fixed on the present situation before moving onto the next activity. Multitasking is the process of doing something part way, moving on to something else, and being able to backtrack and return to it. It may seem like the two activities are getting done more quickly, but a study conducted by researchers of Stanford University showed that attempting to multitask actually leads to a less effective mind and a lower ability to prioritize the important things over the trivial things. 

This, in turn, presents another problem. When only working on one thing at a time, there are just not enough hours in a day to complete everything that requires full attention.

"I feel as though I can't do the things I need to do,î said junior Yehrin Park. "Everything takes me really long, and it's really frustrating."

Park doesn't feel as though she has multitasking skills. In order to finish her AP U.S. History reading, calculus problems, and short story annotations for literature, she often goes to sleep past 3 a.m., getting only about three to four hours of rest a day. Even something that is supposed to help her concentration leads her focus to stray.

"When I listen to music while I do homework, I sometimes write the lyrics to the songs on my homework," Park said. "It's hard to be rocking out to music and be serious about homework at the same time. It doesn't really fit."

But whether or not being able to do fifty things at once matters in terms finishing our work in the allotted time, multitasking is an aspect of learning that goes along with the high school experience. According to history teacher Margaret Platt, school is the perfect place for discovering the best ways to learn and juggle all the challenges we are faced with every day.

"The beginning of understanding how to deal with mass amounts of work and how to multitask is to know about yourself, and to know who you are, what your limits are and what your threshold of pain is," Platt said. "You can begin to adapt strategies to overcome your weak areas, so you can not only cope and learn, but get better and grow."

So, surviving and thriving despite the fire and knives school throws at us doesn't revolve around the ability to multitask, which, aside from involuntary actions like breathing, isn't really possible in the first place.