Some people don't just work — they text, Snapchat, check Facebook and Tinder, listen to music and work. And a new study reveals those multitaskers have brains that look different than those of people who stick to one task.
Researchers at the University of Sussex scanned 75 adults using an fMRI to examine their gray matter. Those who admitted to multitasking with a variety of electronic devices at once had less dense gray matter in their anterior cingulate cortexes (ACC). This region controls executive function, such as working memory, reasoning, planning and execution.
There is no way of knowing if people with smaller anterior cingulate cortexes are more likely to multitask or if multitaskers are shrinking their gray matter. It could even show that our brains become more efficient from multitasking, said Dr. Gary Small, director of UCLA’s Memory and Aging Research Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, who was not involved in the study.
“When you exercise the brain … it becomes effective at performing a mental task,” he said. While previous research has shown that multitasking leads to more mistakes, Small said research remains important to our understanding of something we’re all guilty of doing.
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-Meghan Holohan
