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Professor Henning

ENC 1101

9 February 2020

Is Multitasking Putting Your Life at Risk?

It is not the same decade as it was 20 years ago. Society has continued evolving into what

it is today. There are smartphones, high-speed internet, computers, and a higher rate of life

expectancy. Life is moving so fast that it looks like it will not stop anytime soon. People wake up

with a full list of tasks to complete in a limited amount of time. Individuals push to be their best

by arranging a couple of tasks off their lists at once. It seems like this is the standard to switch

from multiple things to another. People complete them and get them all done, but at what cost?

Alina Tugend helps her claims being obtained by her audience because of her informative

writing. She is aware of all five Rhetorical situations, an audience, a genre, a stance, and

media/design. The article “Multitasking Can Make You Lose...Um...Focus." by Alina Tugend is

successful because of her very persuasive writing style, unique research, Tugend demonstrates

how multitasking is hurting our modern-day society.

The author Alina Tugend is a journalist from the New York Times for the business

section. She has been a journalist at the New York Times from 2005 through 2015. Tugend

published this report on multitasking in the New York Times in 2008. Her intended audience

represents the people who would have read this in the business section, like men and women that

are in business or people interested in the trade of business. She, in addition, has this article

available in a college textbook, so another demographic would-be college students. This

multitasking report also shows the intended age is for a mature audience and not meant for

younger individuals. Tugend also identifies the purpose of this report, so she picks the
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appropriate text and gives one picture that shows multitasking. She captures her audience by

using pathos in her writing. She incorporates ethos well by motivating and drawing the reader's

emotions. Tugend also uses pathos by presenting her intelligence on this subject. She has well-

curated evidence to support her claims which, captures logos.

Tugend tries explaining to her readers that multitasking behaviors produce lifelong

consequences: "While multitasking may seem to be saving time, psychologists, neuroscientists,

and others are finding it can place us under a great deal of stress and make us less efficient."

(Tugend 779). She strongly tries to convey that multitasking behaviors are damaging. Tugend

quoted in her report that Gloria Mark's study shows if a person were multitasking, they would

display higher stress levels: "Her study found that after only 20 minutes of interrupted

performance, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort, and

pressure." (Tugend 782). She presents a great deal of intensive research in her writing. She

establishes a few studies to prove that multitasking is harmful to people's lives. The individuals'

stress levels are higher and are less effective as well as having slower reaction times.

Multitasking can drastically compromise the individual's reaction time: "The RAC Foundation, a

British nonprofit organization that focuses on driving issues, asked 17 drivers, age 17 to 24, to

use a driving simulator to see how texting affects driving. The reaction time was around 35

percent slower when writing a text message-slower than driving drunk or stoned." (Tugend 781).

She discusses multitasking will affect the lives of her readers and that the benefits will outweigh

the cons. The research that she has concluded for this report is extremely detailed and explores

why multitasking could distress a person life and health. This shows she offers experiences in

this area and gives her a substantial amount of credibility’s.

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Tugend explains single tasking will benefit the reader in life. Tugend is a trustworthy

author that maintains an appeal to the audience on her stance of multitasking. She is also

convincing and has logical reasoning, which appeals to her audience. This shows she offers

much experience in this area and gives her substantial amount credibility. Tugend wants to

convince her audience that multitasking has a profound negative impact on people’s life. She

goes on stating it might make a task more fun, but it gets done with less effectiveness and can put

the body under massive amounts of stress. Tugend explains how multitasking can be very

misleading. She says people think they are saving time, but they are actually misusing it. Tugend

claims that it can be tough for an individual that has been undertaking multitasking for a long

time. Tugend states to her readers that the next time they go to rapidly switch from task to task,

they need to stop and focus on one thing at a time. She goes on to say the people will not feel so

overwhelmed by their daily tasks. Tugend states in this report that if an individual does more

single tasking, they will be less frustrated and more effective.

When the next time arises, the reader is on the phone with a family member trying to

resist the urge to send an email or text message. The time when the reader is placing too many

tasks on their platter, they should think of what Alina Tugend's theory was about single tasking.

Remember that multitasking only produces stress, frustration, and less effectiveness. What if the

reader were to try single tasking, would their life be changed for the better?
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Work Citation

Tugend, Alina. “Multitasking Can Make You Lose...Um...Focus.” The Norton Field Guide with

Readings, 5th ed., edited by Richard Bullock and Maureen Daly Goggin, W.W. Norton

and Company, 2019, pp. 779-83. Accessed: May 1, 2020.