If your grandma overhears you talking  with your friends and using words like   “skibidi” and “hey, chat,” she probably  has no idea what you’re talking about.

It’s not her fault. You might speak differently when you’re around  different people or in different contexts.

That’s the general idea of code-switching,  which might seem fairly harmless. But research suggests that it can impact   everything from childhood  learning to medical safety. Here’s what happens when your  code-switching software is running 24/7. [♪ INTRO] When you’re speaking with your  grandma versus your friends,   you might use different speaking styles  or entirely separate vocabularies.

And code-switching is how you swap between those   vocabularies depending on who you’re  talking to or where you are. If you’re bilingual, weaving between languages  can be a really clear example of code-switching. Maybe you’ve said something in Spanish  to your abuela on the way out the door,   and in the same breath, started  talking in English with some friends.

Research published in the journal “Bilingualism:   Language and Cognition,” shows that  bilingual children regularly code-switch. In fact, code-switching is pretty  common for anyone who’s bilingual. And it’s not just language that can swap out.

Accents, word choice, and body language  can all be part of code-switching. But even if a lot of people do it and make it look  easy, it can still use a lot of mental energy. This was studied in 174 children who  were bilingual in Spanish and English.

The study focused on how three  factors interact with each other.

One: how often the kids were  exposed to code switching. Their parents reported how often family members   code-switched in front of the  child on a scale of 1 to 10.

Two: how good the kids are in each language. The children took Spanish and English language   tests that assessed how well they  spoke and understood each language. And three: how much mental  space are they working with? The final test determined the  kids’ verbal working memory.

If your brain’s a stovetop,   then verbal working memory is like  how many burners you have available. When you let these kids cook, they’d do as they’re   told and repeat back longer and longer  sequences of numbers, but in reverse. Remembering and manipulating all  that info is the kind of thing   you’d definitely need plenty of burners for.

Results showed that for kids  with low verbal working memory,   code-switching was detrimental  to language acquisition. Generally, kids who maxed out earlier  in stovetop space scored lower on the   language test when the adults  around them code-switched more. So if you don’t meet a certain  threshold, then even using all   your burners, it can be harder to understand  conversations that involve code-switching.

But for students with higher verbal working  memory, and plenty of burners to go around,   higher exposure to code-switching was  correlated with higher language skills. So if you do have that space, you’re ready  to learn two languages simultaneously. So code-switching can have very different effects  on your language development, person to person.

But your own verbal working  memory isn’t the only factor   that determines how well you learn  when adults code switch around you. The way adults code-switch also plays a role. A 2019 study investigated  how teacher code-switching   affected students’ cognitive flexibility.

In this study, cognitive flexibility was measured  by how well the students could sort stuff. For each trial, they needed  to focus on either the shape   or color of whatever’s in front  of them while ignoring the other. And then, partway through, they’d  focus on the opposite quality.

As the students performed this task,  their teachers were also being assessed. Researchers recorded how frequently  the teachers code-switched,   and if they did it in the middle of a  sentence or from one sentence to the next. It turned out that when teachers switched between  English and Mandarin in the middle of a sentence,   their students were more likely  to do better in the sorting task.

And this wasn’t true if the teacher spoke one  sentence in English and the next in Mandarin. So code-switching in front of  children can be a good thing. And once you learn to code-switch, you  have access to two ways of communicating,   which can help when you can’t seem to  find the right word in one language.

That can be especially helpful when  you’re just learning language as a child,   or when things like dementia make it  harder to recall words as you age. But consequences can pop up when it becomes   a necessity to code-switch into  the majority language or dialect. That first study I mentioned  found that children proficient   in code-switching between English  and Spanish or English and French   found themselves switching into English  more often than into the other language.

Such an early and consistent preference for one   language can eventually mean  losing the other altogether. And growing up bilingual is just  one scenario where code-switching   can become a necessary part of your daily life. Adults in minority groups face a lot of pressure  to code-switch to avoid racial discrimination.

In the US, African-American folks find  themselves code-switching so much that “Black”   or “African American Vernacular English” has been  distinguished from so-called “Standard English”. In a study published in 2001, researchers  asked 97 African American students to review   recordings spoken in standard English, African  American Vernacular English, or a mixture. Participants rated the standard English  recordings as smarter, more aesthetic,   and people the participants  would want to get to know better,   more than the African American  Vernacular English recordings.

And a 2021 study also in the US found  that both Black and white participants   perceived Black people who code-switched  as more professional than those who didn’t. All of that contributes to what’s called  impression management, where people in   minority groups will code-switch  to improve how they’re perceived. And many academic or professional  spaces are set up so that you might   only be able to be successful if you  conform to the dominating culture.

So the pressures to code-switch  come from all sides. And all of those pressures take a toll. Many studies have suggested that  code-switching is incredibly tiring.

Oh, it so is. Especially if you don’t do it that often. In those cases, the brain power needed to  code-switch is literally detectable by EEG, an electrode cap that  measures the electricity in your brain.

Beyond the extra work, you  might feel disingenuous. Not being able to be your authentic self sucks,   and can negatively impact your own cultural  identity when you have to conform too much. And in medicine, inauthenticity  can have bigger effects,   like poorer health outcomes for patients  and increased burnout in physicians.

Studies have found that patients are more likely  to trust physicians that they view as authentic. And that trust, or lack of trust, is  a determinant of vaccine hesitancy. You know, vaccines, the  things that keep you healthy,   and are undisputed by the global  medical and science community.

A review of multiple studies also found  that trust between you and your doctor   leads to you actually listening to  their guidance and ultimately having   better health outcomes if you’re managing  conditions, like, diabetes, cancer, or HIV. So when society is pressuring  physicians to code-switch,   like it’s pressuring pretty much  everyone to do, then we all suffer. And that’s before we even  get to the emotional costs.

Researchers in California gave  Chinese-American parents and their   children an intentionally frustrating puzzle toy. And they observed that frustration increased how much   parents code-switched back  to their primary language. And if you’re in a society like the  US that equates “speaking white” with   values like professionalism and  intelligence, then you might feel   like you need to suppress your emotions to  prevent those involuntary code-switches.

Oh, yeah. Maybe, like… definitely. So peer-reviewed research suggests that  code-switching can use up more mental energy,   shake your personal identity, influence  your career, and impair healthcare outcomes.

But studies also demonstrate how  code-switching can benefit you,   like when you first learn language and  when it starts to slip away in old age. By welcoming diverse voices and making changes,   like designing voice assistant devices to  respond to African American Vernacular English   just as well as it does to standard English,  we can tip the scales toward the positives. And that is a switch worth making. [♪ OUTRO]