By Tan Chong Yaw

UNI-TASKING. The word sounded out of place uttered in the hubbub of a downtown cafe.

After all, we were surrounded by multi-tasking people getting a caffeine fix.

Folk deep in conversation, lost in their music playlists or on their phones or laptops.

"Uni-tasking," I said in jest, "sounds like something a rhinoceros does."

Not put off, the gentleman I was speaking to advocated the virtues of focusing on just one thing at a time.

And this from the mouth of a blogger-joggerteacher- online forum moderator.

But multi-tasking makes you more productive, right?

Look at me. While writing this piece, I have eight windows open on my laptop, including a browser bulging with 20 tabs. That excludes e-mail and messaging pop-ups.

Even gizmos have taken on Swiss Army knife-like personalities.

There are cameras that are camcorders and vice versa. And Internet fridges that let you chill out on the Net while your foodstuff is being chilled.

Multi-core processors cram several silicon brains into a chip.

However, the productivity that multi-tasking is assumed to bring may well be a myth.

A Stanford University study reported by the BBC in August found that habitual multi-taskers are not more efficient. In fact, they have difficulty concentrating.

These are media multi-taskers - those who watch videos online, surf the Net, use their cellphones and write or read - all at once.

Sounds familiar?

In July, The New York Times ran a story that said that multi-tasking drivers - like those who talk on the phone while driving - were a serious threat on America's roads.

Mind you, hands-free headsets do not solve the problem. It is holding the conversation itself that is taking the driver's attention off the road.

The story goes on to say that drivers who yak on the phone are four times more likely to have an accident. And get this: yakking drivers are as dangerous as drivers who are legally drunk.

This strengthens the case for uni-tasking.

Even with hardware, single-purpose ones do well.

Take the X200 Samsung cellphone, now discontinued, that I bought four years as a spare phone when I travel.

It is a plain old flip phone with no other ambition in life. No extra smarts in it at all.

But a good phone it is: It does not hang, is responsive and dead easy to use. Its battery life of about a week will cause all smartphones to hang their heads in shame.

I have just fished it out from the drawer where I have left it since June.

Not only does this little gizmo power up fine, it is still fully charged.

Another good uni-tasking device: the Kindle - Amazon's e-book reader. When you first use it, you will be frustrated. It feels slow and lacks the snap of the PC.

You cannot flit between books like you can on the windows of your PC with flicks of the Alt and Tab keys.

Cynically put, the Kindle is but a lobotomised PC.

What it does superbly is display a pleasing and rock-steady page of text.

The hardware forces you to uni-task - to focus on the page you are reading. No distractions are offered.

Yes, we are yanked along at a frenetic pace in our lives. But with some activities like reading and writing, there is a place for uni-tasking.

So here is my variation of a time-tested adage: If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing on its own.

cytan@sph.com.sg

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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