Is multitasking a myth? Nancy Kanwisher's toaster keeps MIT OpenCourseWare busy

Nothing new went up, and a nine-day-old short neuroscience talk is the channel's most-watched video right now, ahead of a blockchain lecture and the September recap.

Channel: MIT OpenCourseWareStory of October 1, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.

Is multitasking a myth?

Can the brain really do two things at once? Professor Nancy Kanwisher takes that question on in "Is multitasking a myth?", and nine days after it went up it is the busiest video on MIT OpenCourseWare. It has passed 60,000 views. Her explanation rests on what the description calls the "toaster model" of mental processing: some kinds of information run side by side in the brain and others have to wait their turn. The tags point to where the question bites hardest, distracted driving.

Kanwisher is a natural guide for it. Her lab at MIT is known for mapping the specialized regions of the brain, among them the fusiform face area, the patch that responds most strongly to faces.

No new videos went up, and the rest of the week belonged to the summer catalog. Robert M. Townsend's opening lecture for 14.129, Blockchain and the Design of Financial Systems, is two months old and still drawing a steady few hundred views a day. September's OCW Update is close behind. It is a roundup of new releases, from Oceans and Us to Economic Crises, plus a conversation with Sal Khan about the project.

Among the explainer and education channels of a similar size, Tom Scott is the one having the big stretch, running at several times his usual daily pace. Simplilearn and RealLifeLore are also above their norm. Johnny Harris and Wendover Productions are a little quieter. MIT OpenCourseWare sits sixth of nine by subscribers, at about 6.5 million, with an archive that does not need a busy week to keep teaching.

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The videos drawing views on MIT OpenCourseWare right now

Lecture 1: Introduction to 14.129 Blockchain and Design of Financial …97,798 views The OCW Update - September 2026178,272 views

The numbers

Here are the figures behind MIT OpenCourseWare's week.

subscribers

6,520,000

total views

553,979,873

compared with similar channels (subscribers)

Johnny Harris

7,970,000

RealLifeLore

7,940,000

Xiaomanyc 小马在纽约

7,110,000

Tom Scott

6,740,000

Simplilearn

6,730,000

MIT OpenCourseWare

6,520,000

mmmEnglish

6,380,000

Simple History

5,110,000

Wendover Productions

4,920,000

As of October 1, 2026 · Data source: Trari Social News, Trari Traffic Trends and Ranking Platform, Google YouTube

Subscriber, view, like and comment counts are YouTube's. Rates, usual days, rankings, comparisons and categories are Trari's own calculations.

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