By: Sue Shellenbarger, Wall Street Journal
Thursday, March 27, 2003


Professor David Meyer's research on multitasking was featured again in Sue Shellenbarger's regular Thursday Work & Family column in the March 20, 2003 Wall Street Journal. The article, Multitasking Is Next Front In Struggle Between the Sexes, discusses readers reactions to her February 27 column on the same topic. From the article:

If you're looking for the next battlefront in the Gender Wars, search no more.

Forget why men won't ask for directions or why women won't get to the point. The new flashpoint between the sexes is multitasking.

"All of us know it's men who have trouble with multitasking," says Rochelle Hall, a Washington, D.C., securities lawyer. Ms. Hall polled acquaintances and found unanimous agreement. "One of my friends said, 'Who else has the time not to multitask except men?' "

Gender differences opened a deep divide among the 100-plus readers who responded to my recent column on multitasking. Beyond that, men and women alike say they resent the amount of multitasking they're pressured to do. Many of you even worry that you're risking permanent damage to your brains.

Women clearly regard themselves as winners in the X-Games of Extreme Multitasking. "Our society and culture expect women to do it all, so we do," writes Margaret Gottlieb, managing director, Foster Partners Executive Search, Washington. "How else would we keep the Free World moving?" Some employers prefer to hire women on the belief they can get "two-fers or even three-fers" who can multitask, she adds.

Male readers weighed in with tales of domestic strife. "My wife chides me for not doing two things at the same time," says Paul Ginsberg, a New York business manager. At home, he says, "I'll have 10 to-dos on my household list and I'm working on No. 3, and she'll say, 'Whatever happened with Nos. 1 and 5?' "

Another reader, a self-described "one-task-at-a-time kind of guy," laments, "My wife can talk on the phone, prepare dinner, supervise homework and keep her eye on me -- 'If you're not doing anything, how about a hand with this?' -- at the same time...."