Week 3: Media Multitasking

COMM 2118 Media & Society

Ye Sun

13 Sept 2021
What is media multitasking?
Definition
· In Jeong & Hwang (2016)
- “performing two or more tasks simultaneously, one of which involves
media use”
- three categories
- a medium and a nonmedia task (e.g., TV & homework)
- two distinctive media (e.g., TV & IPad)
- two tasks on a single medium (e.g., Emailing & Facebooking)

3/26
Clay Shirky
“Why I just asked my students to put their laptops away”
Shirky’s change in classroom policy:
· Before: “allowed unless by request”

- technology an organic part of learning

- professors responsible for making the class interesting
- students responsible for their own time management

· Now: “banned unless required”

5/26
Why?
· Bad for the quality of cognitive work
- negative long-term effects on “declarative memory”

· Multitasking is a myth:
- efficiency is actually degraded
- “emotional gratification”
- not “gym rats” but “alcoholics”

6/26
Metaphor (I): The Elephant and the Rider

7/26
In our imagination…

8/26
In reality…

9/26
In reality…

10/26
Metaphors (II): Second-hand smoking
· the “Nearby Peers” effect

· “the degradation of fous is social”

· The rider-and elephant" problem exists for groups too.

11/26
Shirky’s answers
“…the biggest change – not a switch in rules, but a switch in how I see my role.”

· “I have a classroom full of riders and elephants, but I’m trying to teach the riders.”

· “The industry has committed itself to an arms race for my students’ attention, and
if it’s me against Facebook and Apple, I lose”

· “I’m coming to see student focus as a collaborative process. It’s me and them
working to create a classroom where the students who want to focus have the best
shot at it, in a world increasingly hostile to that goal.”

12/26
Cliff Nass on multitasking

Are You Multitasking Your Life Away? Cliff Nass at TEDxStanford

13/26
Your self-reflections:
· What are your experiences (positive or negative) with multitasking?
· What do you think of Shirky’s classoom policy?
· Has the article made you think of multitasking differently?

14/26
Meta-analysis:
The effects of multitasking
Meta-analysis
· “A study of studies”

· The goal: To estimate the overall effect size of the phenomenon

- Is the effect real?

- How big is the effect?

16/26
Very briefly
Some quantitative background knowledge
An “effect”/“relationship”…
· Generally, two scenarios in quantitative social science:

- Differences in A lead to differences in B. (Differences)

- As A increases/decreases, B increases/decreases. (Correlation)
· IV vs. DV

- A: Independent Variable (IV) (predictor variable, etc.)

- B: Dependent Variable (DV) (outcome/responsible variable, etc.)

18/26
Direction & Magnitude
· Direction of an effect/relationship

- Positive: A & B change in the same direction

- Negative: A & B change in the opposite direction
- No effect: Changes in A & B are not contingent on each other.
· Magnitude of an effect/relationship

- “Larger”/“Greater”/“Stronger”
- Can think of it in terms of the absolute value
- e.g., r = -.45 is a bigger effect than r = .21

19/26
A bit more: Moderation & mediation
· Moderator:

- If A-B effect/relationship varies according to the level of C, we say C is a

moderator of the A-B effect/relationship.
· Mediator:

- If the effect of A on B goes through D – that is, A -> D -> B – we say D is a

mediator as it is the mediating mechanism between A & B.
· Usually, Hypotheses (H) & Research Questions (RQ) are predictions/questions
involving at least A & B, sometimes specifying C or D.

· Note: A, B, C, D here are purely for the convenience of teaching and are arbitrary.

20/26
A, B, C, D in Jeong & Hwang (2016)…
· H1: Multitasking will have negative effects on cognitive outcomes and positive
effects on attitudinal outcomes.

· IV & DV?

- IV: Multitasking vs. non-multitasking

- DV:
- cognitive outcomes
- attitudinal outcomes
· Direction of effects:

- Multitasking vs. non-multitasking decreases cognitive outcomes.

- Multitasking vs. non-multitasking increases attitudinal outcomes.

21/26
A, B, C, D in Jeong & Hwang (2016)…
· H2: Multitasking will have greater effects on cognitive and attitudinal
outcomes when user control is low (vs. high).

· IV & DV

· “User control”?

- Moderator
· The same for H3- H7 (all with moderators)

· What about respondent age (undergraduate, adult, or children)?

· Is there a D?

22/26
The meta-analysis
· Literature search, screening, and selection
- Final pool for analysis: 43 papers with 49 studies
· Measures/Operationalization
- Cognitive outcomes: attention, interest, comprehension, recall, task
performance
- Attitudinal outcomes: agreement to message, reduced counterarguing,
attitude change
- and many moderator variables…

23/26
Key findings:
· Multitasking vs. non-multitasking on cognitive outcomes:
- k = 41 studies
- d= -.71
· Multitasking vs. non-multitasking on attitudinal outcomes:
- k = 15 studies
- d= .37
· H1 is supported.

24/26
Findings on the moderator analyses
· On cognitive outcomes
- User control
- Task relevance
- Task contiguity
- Respondent age
- undergraduate: d= -.78
- adult: d= -.58
- children: d= -.23
· On attitudinal outcomes
- task contiguity (note: based on only 3 studies)

25/26
Questions & Comments?