Multitasking is a regressive survival skill, not civilizational progress
Evidence
Excessive positivity also expresses itself as an excess of stimuli, information, and impulses. It radically changes the structure and economy of attention. Perception becomes fragmented and scattered. Moreover, the mounting burden of work makes it necessary to adopt particular dispositions toward time and attention [Zeit-und Aufmerksamkeitstechnik]; this in turn affects the structure of attention and cognition. The attitude toward time and environment known as “multitasking” does not represent civilizational progress. Human beings in the late-modern society of work and information are not the only ones capable of multitasking. Rather, such an aptitude amounts to regression. Multitasking is commonplace among wild animals. It is an attentive technique indispensable for survival in the wilderness. — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 36
Categorization
- XREF: Directly inverts the common productivity-culture praise of multitasking; connects to the modern workplace and to the later pathological-claims about ADHD as a ‘neuronal’ disorder — if multitasking is regression, then attention deficit is not a disease but an adaptation.
- SEED: Blog/essay angle: ‘Why being on top of five Slack channels at once is a sign of regression, not competence’ — apply Han’s claim to the reader’s own week of fragmented attention.