My high school friend Susie posted this KQED article on Facebook. I couldn’t agree more with its focus on the value of daydreams and allowing everyone adequate time to recharge batteries.
Referencing today’s many distractions, KQED reporter Katrina Schwartz writes, “Many people believe they are skilled multitaskers, but they’re wrong. Neuroscience has shown that multitasking — the process of doing more than one thing at the same time — doesn’t exist.
“ ‘The brain doesn’t multitask,’ said Daniel Levitin, author and professor of psychology, behavioral neuroscience and music at McGill University on KQED’s Forum program. ‘It engages in sequential tasking or unitasking, where we are shifting rapidly from one thing to another without realizing it.’ The brain is actually fracturing time into ever smaller parts and focusing on each thing individually. …
“The brain has a natural way of giving itself a break — it’s called daydreaming. ‘It allows you to refresh and release all those neural circuits that get all bound up when you’re focused,’ Levitin said. …
“[Daydreaming] is particularly important for students, who are often asked to sit through a long school day with very few breaks. Lots of research has shown the importance of recess and free play time for academic success, but schools still tend to emphasize time spent in class ‘learning’ over a more nuanced view of how and why kids learn.
“ ‘Children shouldn’t be overly scheduled,’ Levitin said. ‘They should have blocks of time to promote spontaneity and creativity.’ Without that time, kids don’t have the mental space to let new ideas and ways of doing things arise. Daydreaming and playing are crucial to develop the kind of creativity many say should be a focal point of a modern education system.” More.
Time to think, time to free associate, is not just important for kids. If the electric handwarmers I use in winter take twice as long to recharge as to expend their stored heat, then I, too, should have double time to recharge after engaging on anything. You, too.
Photo: Brynja Eldon/Flickr
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