BOONPOJANASOONTORN 1

Thanawin Pat Boonpojanasoontorn

Mr.Abel Cadias

English 10 / 10:03

May 16, 2017

The Relationship Between Age and Multi-Tasking

The age of human affects the ability of multitasking due to the lowered brain efficiency

and the decrease of brain reflexes. The purpose of this research is to find out whether age is

related to the ability of multitasking or not. The importance of this report is to provide

information on the effect of age to the ability to multi task. This research contains eight sources.

First, an article entitled Can People Really Multitask? discusses about why human couldnt

multitask. Second, an article entitled Think You're Multitasking? Think Again. shows that

humans brain arent good at high-level multitask. Third, an article entitled People Can

Multitask Effectively - Fact or Myth proves that human cant multitask effectively and explain

the reason of it. Fourth, an article Only 2% Of People Can Actually Multitask - This Test Will

Tell You If You Are One Of Them proves that only few amount of human could multitask.

Fifth, a video entitled Why the Human Brain Can't Multitask. points out that the ability of

humans brain is not efficient enough to multitask. Sixth, a presentation entitled Does Age

Affect Reaction Time? suggests that as the time passes, the reflex of human becomes slower.

Seventh, an article entitled How Your Brain Changes with Age. writes about the change of

humans brain over time. Last, an article entitled As We Age, Loss of Brain Connections Slows

Our Reaction Time. explains that brain works less effective as we grow older.
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Multitasking

Multitasking is an act of doing two or more things at the same time. Even though, your

heart is beating all the time and you are also breathing all the time, you are NOT multitasking. In

fact, Low-level functions like breathing and pumping blood aren't considered in multitasking

(Adams, 2017). Many people tried to multitask and thought they could do it but actually,

humans couldnt multitask. Hamilton suggested about how multitasking that instead of doing

many things simultaneously, human changes its focus from one goal into another very fast

(2008). This means that people are actually quickly changing task from one to another back and

forth.

How Brain Develops Overtime

Since the ability of multitasking is directly related to brain, this part will be talking about

brain and its ability. Humans brain is an amazing organ of humans body. Its development

changes accordingly to the age of human. The development of it will be explained in two major

parts containing the brain cells and reflexes. First, the development of brain cells is somehow

odd. The Canyon Ranch suggests that brain cells is called neurons which humans are born with

around 100 billion neurons (n.d.). These neurons will grow bigger and work better as humans

grow up into a toddler. After the period of toddler, brain has twice as many synapses (a junction

between two nerve cells) as an adults brain. This means that the brain has its best ability at

learning languages now. In teenagers, the brain could now compare few things at the same time
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and still remains the ability of the brain in the middle childhood age. After a human reaches the

age of 20, the brain has reached its peak of developing. The brain with the age of 20 or more will

start to get worse as the table show:

Age of the Brain Side Effects

20 - 30s - Reasoning, spatial skills and speed of thought begin to decline

Mid 30s - Memory begins to slip

- Number of neurons in the brain decreases

- Harder to learn new things

40 - 50s - Your reasoning skills slow

- fading sharpness in memory and verbal fluency

60s - Less efficient at accessing that knowledge and adding to it

- Tend to get Alzheimer (this makes rates of brain tissue loss and

cognitive decline become faster)

80s - More risk of Alzheimer

Table 1: The aging of humans brain and its side effects

Table 1 shows the number of neurons decrease as human age from 20 years old. Despite

agings consequences, there are also some good side for aging older, too.
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Age of the Brain Good Effects

40 - 50s - Moral decision-making, regulating emotions and reading social

situations improves in the beginning middle age

40 - 80s - Tend to remember positive images more than negative ones

Table 2: Good side of aging

The second topic that will be discussed about is the reflex of the brain. According to

oxford dictionary, the meaning of reflex is the thing humans do back to respond to the stimulus

automatically without thinking a second thought. As mentioned in the paragraph before, brains

function gets worse as human grow up. Despite the decrease of neuron in the brain, parts that

also break down along with neurons are brain connection. The fact that human act or do

something slowly when their age becomes older is because of the nerve impulses become slower

due to the connection between nerve cells are broken down and due to the decreasing amount of

neurons. As a result, humans reflex gets slower as they ages.

The Relationship Between Brain and Multitasking

With the given information, the connection between brain and multitasking becomes

more clear. The growth of the brain really does affect the multitasking. This does not mean that

brain helps human to be able to multitask but the opposite. The brain only develops itself until

the age of 20 then the brain stops developing and begin to break down. The decrease of neuron
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makes humans thinking speed drops which would, obviously, not help human to multitask since

multitasking needs the speed of thinking two things at the same exact time. Even though to

multitask in a lower age than 20 might sound helpful to multitasking since all of the neurons are

still active, but the brain doesnt work that way. In fact, the brain couldnt simply compare few

things at the same time until the teen age. As a result, the changes of brain do affect

multitasking but not in a good way (Teen age - 20s would be the best age for multitasking).

In the aspect of the brains reflexes, the connection between them and multitasking is a

self-explanatory concept. In order to multitask, humans brain and body must be able to respond

to more than one thing at the same time and also maintain the response throughout the

multitasking. This means that good reflexes are required for multitasking. But as the brain

changes, neurons break down. The connection between two nerve cells also collapses. This

shows that humans reflexes also become worse overtime. Without efficient brain connection,

good reflexes couldnt be made and, as a result, it is harder for multitasking.

After adding all of these informations together, the result happens to be that, actually, the

age of humans brain affects the ability of multitasking, but not in a good way. The nature

prevents humans from doing so. The first thing is that humans grow up and have better reflexes

from childhood to early adulthood. The growing of the neurons and synapses enables human

brain to compare few concepts at the same time and learn new set of languages easily. It means

that, if the neurons and synapses of humans brain keeps growing from that point, the reflex will

get even better, thinking of even more thoughts at the same time will be easier, which will, next,
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lead to the ability of multitasking. But sadly, it doesnt work that way. Humans body stops the

brain growth at the age of twenty and put it to the downfall of its ability. This makes human

unable to multitask. The closest age of human to multitasking is the age of 20 since the brain is at

its best on reflexes. Hence, human brains growth does affect the ability to multitask but human

are not designed for multitasking.

Conclusion

This research reports purpose aimed to find out if age is related to the ability of

multitasking or not. This research report concluded that the age affects the multitasking ability. It

is because when human brain grows, the reflex becomes better which could lead to multitasking.

With the grow of neurons and synapses, human could be able to have a good reflex and think of

few things at the same time. Although the brain grows and its neuron become more effective, the

brain stops growing at the age of 20 and it starts to work worse. If human brains were to keep on

growing after the age of 20, the mankind would be able to multitask at the age of more than 20.

This research report recommends further studies on other factors that could help teenagers to

multitask.
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References

Adams, C. (n.d.). Can People Really Multitask? Retrieved March 22, 2017, from
https://www.thoughtco.com/can-people-really-multitask-1206398

DeMichele, T. (2016, March 11). People Can Multitask Effectively - Fact or Myth? Retrieved
March 22, 2017, from http://factmyth.com/factoids/people-can-multitask-effectively/

ForaTv. (2011, June 17). Why the Human Brain Can't Multitask. Retrieved March 27, 2017,
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpD3PxrgICU

Hamilton, J. (2008, October 02). Think You're Multitasking? Think Again. Retrieved March 22,
2017, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794

How Your Brain Changes with Age. (2016, December 07). Retrieved March 28, 2017, from
https://www.canyonranch.com/blog/health/how-your-brain-changes-with-age/

Loria, K. (2014, May 08). Only 2% Of People Can Actually Multitask - This Test Will Tell You
If You Are One Of Them. Retrieved March 22, 2017, from
http://www.businessinsider.com/multitasker-test-tells-you-if-you-are-one-of-the-2-2014-
5

Parris, D. (2014, May 15). Does Age Affect Reaction Time? Retrieved March 28, 2017, from
https://prezi.com/ewdcokrhqzi0/does-age-affect-reaction-time/

Pedersen, T. (2015, October 06). As We Age, Loss of Brain Connections Slows Our Reaction
Time. Retrieved March 29, 2017, from
https://psychcentral.com/news/2010/09/13/as-we-age-loss-of-brain-connections-slows-ou
r-reaction-time/18031.html