Brave New World, Again

From Wednesday night's PBS Newshour...

One wonders about this multitasking thing.  The old joke used to be that women excel at it and men don't.  I've seen some anecdotal evidence to support this theory and I know for a FACT that I'm largely incapable of multitasking.  In my  personal esperience I find that one thing or the other suffers and none of the tasks I'm trying to accomplish simultaneously ever come out well.  So does this mean I have an old-fashioned 20th century brain?  Is the new generation REALLY capable of working on several things at once?  From the transcript of the above video:

MILES O'BRIEN: Neuroscientist Marcel Just is doing some groundbreaking research on the human brain at Carnegie Mellon University.

So, we pay a big penalty for doing more, two things at once?

MARCEL JUST: That's right. There's only so much brain capability at any one time, throughput. And you can divide it down as much as you want to, but the price will be even higher then.

MILES O'BRIEN: Like driving and talking on the phone. A few years ago, Just did a study on this. His conclusion? Even an idle conversation takes a 40 percent bite out of your brainpower. You might as well be drunk.

So, multitasking is not a myth, but efficient multitasking might be?

MARCEL JUST: Yes. Multitasking with no cost is a myth. I think there's no free lunch there.

Suspicions confirmed, eh?  "You might as well be drunk."  Think about that the next time you take a phone call in traffic.