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FIRST DRAFT 4 AUGUST 2013
Exploring the Media Multitasking Phenomenon
I multitask every single second I am online. At this very moment, I am watching TV,
checking my email every two minutes, reading a newsgroup about who shot JFK,
burning some music to a CD and writing this message. 17-year-old boy
(Lenhart, Rainie, & Lewis, 2001)
In this digital age, rare is a person who can devote his entire day to only one task at a
time. Todays commonplace is to hear our youngsters insist that they can handle listening to
iTunes and Instant Messaging while doing their homework, or to witness how professionals
maneuver their cars on the road while expertly typing a message and listening to a business
call through their BlackBerry . Because this juggling of activities becomes so ingrained in our
daily lives, experts have come to introduce a collective term for this phenomenon: media
multitasking the act of simultaneously engaging in single or multiple media-focused
activities in conjunction with another task, be it media-related that is, whether in different
media (media-to-media) or just a single medium (intra-medium) or nonmedia-related
(media-to-nonmedia).
Media multitasking, despite its being a relatively young area of inquiry, has already
drawn interest among scholars across different fields. Owing to this, many definitional
concerns regarding the essence of the abovementioned information-age phenomenon have
also surfaced. Recently, a multidisciplinary group of academics gathered for a one-day lecture
on media multitaskings impact on childrens learning at Stanford University, led by Principal
Investigator Clifford Nass, the CHIME (Communication between Humans and Interactive
Media) Laboratory Director. In this seminar, the original definition of media multitasking,
which is engaging in more than one media activity at a time, has been corrected to
encompass even those activities that are nonmedia-related, so long as they are carried out in
conjunction with tasks executed on a medium a modality of representing information (e.g.,
text, photos, music, diagrams, animations, and video). Moreover, since media multitasking,
like any other forms of multitasking, is just rapid task switching that is, a sequential
process involving the brains quick toggling from one stimulus-response task to another it is
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then erroneous to use the word simultaneous when describing the nature of multitasking.
While all of these semantic amendments scaffold a better definition for this growing trend, the
biggest question is yet to be answered: If we are to frame a clear exploration on media
multitasking, how can we best understand this concept? Patricia Greenfield Ph.D.,
distinguished Professor of Psychology at University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA),
resolved this by shrewdly breaking down media multitasking into three types: (a) media-to-
media or inter-media; (b) intra-medium; and (c) media-to-nonmedia.
The first type of media multitasking, known as media-to-media or inter-media,
involves combining two or more mediated tasks. The simple juggling act of text messaging
while listening to the radio already falls under this category. In 2005, Learning Environments
Session Chair Donald Roberts led his team to organize a report for the Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation (KFF) that would track the growth of media multitasking among 8- to 18-year old
subjects. Although, this study is the same study that coined the term media multitasking, the
most notable respect of the report is its detailed examination of which forms of media are
commonly used together by multitaskers. It was gleaned that composing and checking emails
are the most likely activity to be multitasked, with 83% of email time spent concurrently with
another media activitymostly listening to music, watching television or reading. Generally,
the key finding of the study was that time consumed with media by American children was
holding constant at 6.5 hours a day, but that kids were packing in 8.5 hours of media exposure
within those 6.5 hours by engaging with more than one medium or media platform at a time.
As promised by KFF, an updated report was released in 2010, since, as Roberts noted, rapid
evolution of media meant that [previous] surveys are always a technology behind. True to
form, the recent survey with its inclusion of texting and social networking (i.e., Twitter)
showed more astounding figures of how people become progressively wired to multiple
media, given the rise of new technology these days. Clearly, media-media multitasking has
now emerged as a ubiquitous trend.
The second type of media multitasking, known as intra-medium, pertains to ones
engagement to multiple tasks within a single medium, presumably a meta-medium. The
continuing growth in the demand and dependency on various meta-media, such as smart
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phones and computers, are attributed by researchers to the plethora of mediated services these
gadgets can offer. With a meta-medium, all of those previously disparate media radio,
video, camera, music, chat, and more have now converged into a single multitasking
device. Studies indicate that, as for the present decade, computer is unequivocally the most
powerful meta-medium available. Also in the KFF reports findings, coauthor Ulla G. Foehr
accounted all-computer related activities writing emails, listening to music, computer
gaming, and the like to a relatively high percentage of the demographics multimedia time,
thus dubbing computers as the gateways to diverse activities. Besides, as a representational
technology par excellence, the computer also allows distinct media-related tasks be connected
and integrated with one another in new ways, therefore amplifying the users media
experience. It is in the same context that smart phones are, likewise, of equal necessity these
days. Now, one can do more than just text. Through mobile apps, anybody can easily access
the internet to check his or her email, log on to the social network, or simply web surf. Indeed,
having the ability to accomplish loads of tasks in just a few clicks is a remarkable feat in this
media-heavy society. Yet, amid the claims that these versatile media multitasking stations make
life less hassle, one cannot also deny that intra-medium multitasking caters a completely new
level of multi-channel distractions to the modern populace.
The third type of media multitasking, known as media-to-nonmedia, entails
combining a mediated task with face-to-face or real-life interaction. Greenfield illustrated this
by citing a teenager busily texting while at the dinner table. Another example was given by
Nass, who described his experience of watching a student at Stanford lend an ear to a
distressed friend, while keeping an eye on the open windows of her laptop. However
disconcerting this might seem, nothing matches the anxiety of todays parents to their
childrens screen time. Parents have watched this phenomenon unfold with a mixture of awe
and concern, writes Claudia Wallis in her 2006 Time cover story, genM: The Multitasking
Generation. Here, she talked about the reception of the Coxes one of the thirty-two
families who participated in an intensive four-year study about modern family life in Los
Angeles to their childrens high propensity to digital-technology addiction. Wallis quoted:
they both make these fancy PowerPoint presentations about what they want for Christmas,
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says Georgina [the mother]. [But] we rarely have dinner together anymore, frets Stephen [the
father]. Everyone is in their own little world, and we don't get out together to have a social
life." Indeed, as reported in the KFF statistics, a majority of media multitaskers, primarily young
adults, is found to regard real-life interactions, such as eating or socializing, as merely their
secondary activity whenever engaged in mediated tasks, like watching TV, which they
prioritized even more. Whether driven by ones search for the constant hit of dopamine or
merely a compulsion towards the second screen, the media-to-nonmedia multitasking is
deemed to stage the most troubling dilemma for chronic multitaskers.
The concept of media multitasking is pervasive. This way of life has indeed grown
ubiquitously so fast that it will unlikely disappear through time. If todays commonplace is to
see our youngsters listening to iTunes and Instant Messaging while doing their homework, then
how big is the possibility that tomorrow will be anything but same? If nowadays, we typically
witness professionals driving while expertly texting and listening to a business call, then how
guaranteed are we that this will no longer be observed on the next years? That being raised, it
is then our duty to grasp a clear understanding of the media multitasking phenomenon along
its larger implications, and to remind ourselves that theres still a life beyond the screen.