Apparent multi-tasking is really rapid sequential switching between tasks

Evidence

While it is fashionable to speak of multi-tasking (or of divided attention), as though we were able to carry out two or three activities in parallel, the laboratories bring to light a PRINCIPLE OF INTERMITTENCE by which we divide our attention by moving very quickly between tasks, only dealing with one at a time. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 382

Categorization

• XREF: Contradicts the popular framing of multitasking as genuine parallelism — useful for the reader’s attention theory bridging.