If you are sending a text, watching the TV or listening to the radio, you may want to stop and give this your full attention.

Multi-tasking shrinks the brain, research suggests, and it could even be damaging your career.

A study found that men and women who frequently used several types of technology at the same time had less grey matter in a key part of the brain.

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Multi-tasking shrinks the brain, research suggests, and it could even be damaging your career.A study found that men and women who frequently used several types of technology at the same time had less grey matter in a key part of the brain

University of Sussex researchers said: 'Simultaneously using mobile phones, laptops and other media devices could be changing the structure of our brains.'

Worryingly, the part of the brain that shrinks is involved in processing emotion.

The finding follows research which has linked multi-tasking with a shortened attention span, depression, anxiety and lower grades at school.

The researchers began by asking 75 healthy men and women how often they divided their attention between different types of technology.

Experts said multitasking with multiple media devices wears away the grey matter, which is the part of the brain that processes information

This could mean sending a text message while listening to music and checking email, or speaking on the phone while watching TV and surfing the web.z

The volunteers were then given brain scans which showed they had less grey matter in a region called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC).

The findings held even when differences in personality were taken into account.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, is the first to make a link between multi-tasking and the structure of the brain.

Researcher Kep Kee Loh said: 'Media multi-tasking is becoming more prevalent in our lives today and there is increasing concern about its impacts on our cognition and social-emotional well-being.'

He added that more research is needed to prove that multi-tasking shrinks the brain.

This is because it is also possible that people with less grey matter in the ACC are more drawn to using lots of gadgets simultaneously.

Scientists have previously demonstrated brain structure can be altered on prolonged exposure to novel environments and experience.

Other studies have shown that training – such as learning to juggle or taxi drivers learning the map of London – can increase grey-matter densities in certain parts.

Experts have also warned of the harmful impact technology can have on our memory and attention span.

The University of California team commissioned a survey of more than 18,000 people aged between 18 and 99 and found 20 per cent had problems with memory.

Researchers were taken aback by the 14 per cent of 18 to 39-year-olds who also worried about their memories.

Multi-tasking with gadgets may shorten attention span, making it harder to focus and form memories, the researchers said, adding that youngsters may be particularly affected by stress.

SORRY CHAPS, YOUR BRAINS AREN'T MADE FOR MULTITASKING Women have known it for generations – and the proof has finally arrived. A separate study has found that the female brain is ‘hard-wired’ to be better at multi-tasking. Men’s brains, in comparison, are better at concentrating on single complex tasks – whether it be reading a map or cooking a meal. Scientists scanned the brains of 949 young men and women in the biggest investigation of its kind to date. Using hi-tech diffusion MRI imaging, they mapped the connections between the different parts of the brains. The researchers at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that women have far better connections between the left and right sides of the brain, while men display more intense activity within the brain’s individual parts, especially in the cerebellum, which controls motor skills. Men also have better connections between the front and back of the brain, giving them a better ability to quickly perceive information and use it immediately to carry out complex tasks. This means they are better at things such as learning to swim or, as the old bone of contention has it, parking a car. Women are better at, for example, remembering a face, which means making connections between parts of the brain. Advertisement

A separate study by Stanford University backs the latest research that multi-tasking is less productive than doing one thing at a time.

After putting about 100 students through three tests, the researchers realised heavy multi-taskers are paying a big mental price.

People who multi-task, according to the research, are not only less efficient, but they also have difficulty in paying attention, recalling information and changing from one job to another.

The Stanford researchers compared groups of people based on their tendency to multitask and their belief that it helps their performance.

In each of their tests, the researchers split their subjects into two groups: those who regularly do a lot of media multi-tasking and those who don't.

In one experiment, the groups were shown sets of two red rectangles alone or surrounded by two, four or six blue rectangles.

Each configuration was flashed twice, and the participants had to determine whether the two red rectangles in the second frame were in a different position than in the first frame.

They were told to ignore the blue rectangles, and the low multi-taskers had no problem doing that.

But the high multi-taskers were constantly distracted by the irrelevant blue images. Their performance was horrible.

Because the high multi-taskers showed they couldn't ignore things, the researchers thought they were better at storing and organising information. Maybe they had better memories.

People who multi-task, according to the research, are not only less efficient, but they also have difficulty in paying attention, recalling information and changing from one job to another

The second test proved that theory wrong. After being shown sequences of alphabetical letters, the high multi-taskers did a poor job at remembering when a letter was making a repeat appearance.

'The low multi-taskers did great,' researcher Eyal Ophir said. 'The high multitaskers were doing worse and worse the further they went along because they kept seeing more letters and had difficulty keeping them sorted in their brains.'