Multitasking

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Is multitasking and/or surfing the net with tons of different windows open at a time examples of stimming?

I'm really not sure, but for me I'm not able to do that at all, I find it too overwhelming to have so many windows and tabs open and I easily get lost. I actively close things when I'm not using them... usually only have 2 or 3 open at a time.

It can be. I used to greatly enjoy immersing myself in busy and complicated things.

Back in day when I played World of Warcraft, my most played character had around 60 keyboard shortcuts (keybinds) I would regularly use in PvP, with slightly over 110 keybinds in total. I'd also mentally keep track of up to 4 players' cooldowns and positioning reasonably well.

And I loved bullet-hell type games.

Part of the experience I loved about it was having my mind wholly consumed by something, applying it fully to the task and being rewarded with the accomplishment of having done something exceptionally difficult. These days I mostly just immerse my brain in stories, with some theory-crafting on the side.

I don't really consider it multitasking, though. I'm not sure what it is, exactly. There's no clear dividing line between what is and is not multitasking. I don't mean from an observable behavior standpoint, but from one's personal experience of related mental exercises. Also, all the people I've met who say they can multitask only end up demonstrating failures to do so successfully.

I personally think that's BS. That's just a Millennial/Gen Z, thing/habit/routine, I believe, to where we have several tabs, windows, programs open on the computer. It's all folklore, falsehoods, and myths, that correlates to ADHD, ASD, Attention issues, focus issues etc. All of that is garbage. It just means you're tech savy and tech intuitive, to be able to keep track, and keep note of all those tabs and windows.

I think that stimming is done to reduce random stimuli. Multitasking is similar, in that it affords enough familiar variety to crowd out intrusive messages. I tend to keep tabs open for a long time if they need focussed attention, and usually have a solitaire game going to fiddle with during ads and other short waiting periods. Overall, I think this has been very bad for my ability to concentrate. Now, I seldom read books, and have also begun to abandon them half-read.

I think having a lot of windows open is (in a way) an easy form of multi-tasking, because there's less challenge to the short-term memory, the information being still there when you go back to the windows to continue what you were doing. I often accumulate a lot of opened browser tabs and documents as I look into whatever I'm researching or processing, then as I draw the strings together towards the end of the session I look at each one and decide whether to close it or process it a bit more first.

I wouldn't call it stimming exactly, I just find it a useful way of giving myself something challenging and complex to do, to divert my attention from my sensory issues and stop me feeling bored and morose.

Honestly, when I think of 'multi-tasking' the first thing that pops into mind is simultaneously carrying on a very involved conversation whilst performing a complex task...and watching people not being able to do either competently.

I don't think multi tabs or programs open itself constitutes multi-tasking. It's not like we humans are in constant struggle with object permanence. You can switch tabs and remember what was there, or in the case of solitaire, you aren't actually doing two separate complex tasks simultaneously. You're just sequentially switching your attention from one thing to another.

Even when working on bringing together complex ideas and processing them in a novel way, you aren't actually doing it simultaneously. I've never heard of anyone whose mind could establish two or more processing channels at the same time. At best you're just juggling a lot of short term memories and your single-channel processing is sequentially jumping back and forth as needed.

The closest likeness to actual multi-tasking being performed simultaneously are subconscious and/or autonomic processes doing their thing while your self-conscious is doing another, or perhaps stuff like when people with DID have different identities attempting to take control and do different things at the same time....but I'm not sure that qualifies as multi-tasking.

So I guess I might venture to conclude that true simultaneous multi-tasking is humanly impossible, and that while while rapid sequential processing and performing two or more substantially different tasks within the same non-instant period of time is possible, it typically correlates with a decrease in performance as the mental demands of the tasks increase. That being said, it seems rather arbitrary to call that 'multi-tasking' since there seems to be no meaningful break-point in the duration after which it is no longer being called qualified as 'multi-tasking'.

Also, there's the question of whether it's important if the different tasks must interfere with each other. I could go for a pee and whistle or walk and talk at the same time, but it's kinda pointless calling it a multi-tasking accomplishment if everyone can do it.

And that's why I just don't use the word. All that just goes out the window if you instead go by the words "Just do your job and don't f**k it up".

I don't think that's a stim. A stim is a response to strong feelings or emotions. It calms some sort of sensory system. Having multiple windows open is just having multiple windows open. Work, ideas that pop into your head, stuff you don't want to forget, etc.