Do multiple monitors actually increase efficiency?

Not on account of making it easier to multitask, I think. But I had an internship where I spent a decent amount of time taking comments and revisions from Design Review and making the changes in AutoCAD, for which two screens would have been a huge time saver. It's much more time consuming to do that sort of editing when you can't see the comments and the drawing you're working on at the same time.<p>It was a small office, and the workstation I was on was only used when they had an intern, so it wouldn't have been a high priority. But you can get a 17" screen for $100, and I'd bet I would have had at least $100 more productivity on drawing revisions if I'd had one.

Multiple monitors don't even have be a major productivity booster to be worthwhile. If an employee's annual cost (salary, benefits, other expenses) is $100,000, an extra monitor is a measly 0.15% more. If that one time expense makes the employee 0.15% more productive the monitor pays for itself multiple times over its lifetime.

If your a coder is sure as hell does. I couldn't live without my two 22"s. Code on the left, browser on the right.<p>...I could maybe even do with another ;)