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December 13, 2006
OK - How exactly do they multitask?
The Kaiser Family Foundation has released another one of their excellent reports. This one is called:
"Media Multitasking Among American Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and Pairings" You can download the PDF of the full report or the key finding here.
Here are some highlights:
"When they are a young person’s primary activity, TV and videogames are the least multitasked media, while reading and computer activities such as instant messaging, computer games and looking at websites are the most multitasked."
"Most young people media multitask at least some of the time, but some don’t do so at all."
"Young people are most likely to use multiple media together when they’re instant messaging (74%), surfing the Internet (74%) or playing computer games (67%); they’re least likely to do so when watching TV (17% of the time)"
"Girls are more likely to media multitask than boys."
"Many teens use media while doing their homework, especially if they’re doing homework on the computer." (and what do they do while doing homework? Listening to music, instant messaging, watching TV, looking at websites, reading, e-mail, other computer activities, playing computer games/videogames.)
"Young people who are “heavy” media multitaskers consume nearly twice as much media as those who are “light” multitaskers."
This is interesting. Understanding multi-tasking might serve us well in designing products and services that integrate with homework and entertainment activities.
Stephen
Posted by stephen at December 13, 2006 8:34 AM