|
“Multi-tasking” is something of a buzzword these days, in corporate circles and
elsewhere. The concept is simple: To be successful, one must be able to handle
several tasks simultaneously. Life is busy and competitive, so doing things one
at a time doesn’t cut it.
That is
to say that to fully maximize one’s potential, one must be able to split their
attention in two or more directions. Another way to look at it is that it’s a
shameful waste to limit one’s focus. Also, we owe it to ourselves and those
around us to use our time as efficiently as possible.
Oh
forget it. I could polish this all day and still wouldn’t have the guts to tell
my wife that’s why I read the paper while talking with her. The truth is I
really don’t know why I do it.
Don’t
misunderstand, I’m not of the “Yes, Dear” school of spousal communication. You
know the image: Husband sits at the kitchen table, head lost in the newspaper,
muttering “uh huh” whenever he senses a lull in the flow. Annoyed, vengeful
wife uses the occasion to get him to agree to bathe her cat.
Now
comes a study from the Indiana University School of Medicine suggesting that men
use only half their brains when listening while women use the whole enchilada.
Participants were wired to gizmos (sorry for the technical talk but it’s a
complicated subject) that measure brain activity while they listened to taped
excerpts from a John Grisham novel. Researchers observing blood-flow images of
the subjects’ brains noticed greater activity in the left temporal lobes of men,
but increased action in both sides for women.
There
are a number of conclusions one could draw from this. The one that made
headlines is that women pay better attention than men, which I reject if only
out of self defense. Before I accept that I’d want to see the study re-run
substituting tapes of Dennis Miller doing Monday Night Football for the Grisham
novel. I suspect most women would flat-line.
It has
also been proposed that women need to use twice as much brainpower to do the
same job as a man. I reject that as well, largely because I like my temporal
lobes just the way they are – in my skull.
At
least one neurologist says the findings suggest women’s brains may be more
right-side dominant than men’s. The right side of the brain is associated with
creativity, whereas the left is said to be the center of logic. This makes
sense to me, as the one thing men are not is creative listeners.
Unfortunately that is exactly what women expect us to be. Ask the lady in your
life whether she’d rather go out for Mexican food or a pizza and you’re likely
to get some variation of “Oh, whatever you want is fine with me.” Gentlemen,
that is a yes or no answer. Don’t ask me which.
My wife
has tried many times to catch me inattentive while multi-tasking with the
newspaper, occasionally stopping mid-sentence to ask “OK, what did I just say?”
In over two decades of marriage I have never been caught. That is not the same
as having actually heard everything she’s ever said, but it is close enough that
she has given up.
Not so
with my daughter. My wife tells her she’s wasting her time but she has either
inherited her mother’s annoyance at male listening habits or it is simply
endemic to her gender. Even she is starting to resign herself to it, a service
for which my future son-in-law will one day owe me big.
The
listening study is all very interesting but what I’d really like to know is how
much of the brain people use when they speak. I have half a mind to ask the
researchers at Indiana University the point of stirring up unneeded trouble
between the sexes with this kind of hoo-ha.
Unfortunately, the other half just wants to read the paper.
© 1997- 2002 Brent Morrison
|
