Multitasking and conflict

Dale Emery suggests multitasking is a poor way of avoiding conflict, which makes sense to me. I wonder also if multitasking isn't sometimes about a need to feel important and busy - a means of establishing self-worth for oneself or for others, or to ward off boredom or purposelessness? I've worked in a few environments where I have sensed that 'busy-ness' in itself was valued or rewarded, at least by implication.