Abstract
Media multitasking, the concurrent use of multiple media forms, has been shown to be related to greater self-reported impulsivity and less self-control. These measures are both hallmarks of the need for immediate gratification which has been associated with fast, intuitive ‘system-1’ decision making, as opposed to more deliberate and effortful ‘system-2’ decision making. In Study 1, we used the Cognitive Reflection Task (CRT) to examine whether individuals who engage heavily in media multitasking differ from those who are light media multitaskers in their degree of system-1 versus system-2 thinking. In Study 2 we examined whether heavy and light media multitaskers differ in delay of gratification, using the delay discounting measure which estimates the preference for smaller immediate rewards, relative to larger delayed rewards in a hypothetical monetary choice task. We found that heavy media multitaskers were more likely than light media multitaskers to endorse intuitive, but wrong, decisions on the CRT indicating a greater reliance on ‘system-1’ thinking. Heavy media multitaskers were also willing to settle for less money immediately relative to light media multitaskers who were more willing to wait for the larger delayed reward. These results suggest that heavy media multitaskers have a reactive decision-making style that promotes current desires (money, ease of processing) at the expense of accuracy and future rewards. These findings highlight the potential for heavy media multitaskers to be at risk for problematic behaviors associated with delay discounting – behaviors such as substance abuse, overeating, problematic gambling, and poor financial management.
Highlights
As personal media devices have become more ubiquitous, dividing our attention amongst several media has become a daily real-world behavior
Twenty-two participants were excluded from the dataset due to incorrectly filling out the Media Multitasking Index (MMI)
Given that greater delay discounting is related to substance misuse, problematic gambling, overeating, and poor financial management, the present results suggest that heavy media multitaskers (HMMs) may be at risk for these behaviors as well, and it would be interesting to examine the frequency of these behaviors in light media multitaskers (LMMs) versus HMMs
Summary
As personal media devices have become more ubiquitous, dividing our attention amongst several media has become a daily real-world behavior. A profile is emerging that suggests that HMMs process information with less goal-relevant selectivity in both visual search (Cain & Mitroff, 2011; Lui & Wong, 2012) and working memory tasks (Ophir et al, 2009; Sanbonmatsu, Strayer, Medeiros-Ward, & Watson, 2013). This difficulty in ignoring irrelevant information has been interpreted as HMMs having reduced cognitive control abilities – a supposition supported by the finding that HMMs have reduced gray-matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex (Loh & Kanai, 2014), an area implicated in the coordinated control of goal-directed behavior (e.g., Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000). Frequent media multitasking does not appear to lead to improved multitasking performance or the ability to accurately evaluate one’s own multitasking ability. Sanbonmatsu et al (2013) found that media multitasking scores were negatively related to actual multitasking ability on an executive control working memory task even though media multitasking scores were positively related to selfperceived multitasking ability
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have