(Press-News.org) CHESTNUT HILL, MA (5/2/2011) – Multitaskers who think they can successfully divide their attention between the program on their television set and the information on their computer screen proved to be driven to distraction by the two devices, according to a new study of media multitasking by Boston College researchers.
Placed in a room containing a television and a computer and given a half hour to use either device, people on average switched their eyes back and forth between TV and computer a staggering 120 times in 27.5 minutes – or nearly once every 14 seconds, Carroll School of Management professors S. Adam Brasel and James Gips report in a forthcoming edition of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
While researchers – and the parents of millions of teenagers – have long suspected media multitasking was distracting, Brasel and Gips used advanced cameras to track where research subjects were looking to understand the physical demands and likely disruption caused by switching between the television and computer.
"We thought it was going to be high, but the frequency of switching and amount of distraction going on was really shocking," said Brasel, an associate professor of marketing.
What's more, the subjects were not even aware of their own actions. On average, participants in the study thought they might have looked back and forth between the two devices about 15 times per half hour. In reality, they were looking nearly 10 times as often. And even if quick "glances" less than 1.5 seconds are removed from the equation, people were still switching over 70 times per half hour.
"What we found is that when people try to pay attention to multiple media simultaneously they are switching back and forth at an astounding rate," said Brasel. "We're not even aware of what we are doing when in multi-media environments."
Study participants who thought they were only looking at the computer during TV commercials, or said they thought they were watching TV while web pages were loading, were actually behaving much differently.
The findings have sweeping implications for millions of people as well as companies that use television advertisements, web ads and web content to connect with consumers. Prior surveys have shown 59 percent of Americans say they now use their computer and television at the same time. In addition, youths under 18 report this type of media multitasking is now the dominant mode in which they use both devices.
Brasel and Gips determined that when it comes to the dominant medium in this side-by-side challenge, the computer comes out the winner, drawing the attention of the study participants 68.4 percent of the time. But neither device proved capable of holding the attention of study participants for very long, regardless of their age. The median length of gaze lasted less than two seconds for television and less than six seconds for the computer, the researchers found. It's not just younger people who are rapid-fire switching between media; men and women over 40 who participated in the study still switched an average of nearly 100 times in 27.5 minutes. It was rare that a person looked at either screen for more than a minute. Just 7.5 percent of all computer gazes and 2.9 percent of all glances at the television lasted longer than 60 seconds, the study found.
Understanding the physical behavior of multi-media multitaskers raises questions about the level of comprehension among people who switch their eyes between the devices, specifically the impact on productivity or on children doing their homework. For companies that rely on TV or the Internet to communicate with consumers, the findings raise questions about the effectiveness of the two channels as means to garner the attention of potential customers.
For both parents and marketers, a new media age has arrived with profound effects. The researchers note the study did not take into account the impact of another ubiquitous device that's now a staple of the media mix: the mobile phone.
"Clearly, the rules we developed for the mono-media culture no longer apply," said Brasel. "Our assumptions about how people are using media need to be updated. The era of the mono-media environment is over."
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Note: The paper "Media Multitasking Behavior: Concurrent Television and Computer Usage," forthcoming in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, is available for free download at the following link: http://www.liebertonline.com/toc/cyber/0/0
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Reston, VA (April 28, 2011) — A summary of the National Council on Radiation Protection's (NCRPs) workshop on the appropriate use of computed tomography (CT) in emergency medicine, and a list of recommendations from participating organizations to help control the inappropriate use of CT in the emergency department, is now available via the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
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Contact: Sherry D. Gibbs
SDGibbs@cmh.edu
816-346-1340
Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics
2 tests better than 1 to diagnose diabetes in overweight children
More than two-thirds of high-risk patients missed if recommended hemoglobin A1C test used alone
Kansas City, MO – May 2, 2011 – A new study found that the recommended blood test may not be enough to catch type 2 diabetes in overweight children, missing more than two-thirds of children at high-risk for the condition. Researchers from Children's Mercy Hospital and Clinics found that performing two tests – both ...
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Nobody likes paying taxes but the IRS will go to great lengths to ensure they get every penny owed. This includes implementing wage garnishments on taxpayers, which can be humiliating as well as stressful.
This is the situation Alonzo (San Bernardino, CA) found himself in which compelled him to contact Blue Tax for help. Since the experts at Blue Tax deal with wage garnishments regularly, they knew exactly how best to proceed with Alonzo's case.
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ENERCA is a European Network for Rare and Congenital Anaemias funded by the European Commission and coordinated by IDIBAPS - Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. Its main purpose is offering an improved public health service to medical practitioners and patients in every aspect of rare anaemias. Recently this year this network published in the American Journal of Hematology (AJH) a series of recommendations for disease management and prevention of complications of sickle cell disease (SCD) in children. With this of publication ENERCA is willing to give clinical guidance to professional ...
A new study of itch adds to growing evidence that the chemical signals that make us want to scratch are the same signals that make us wince in pain.
The interactions between itch and pain are only partly understood, said itch and pain researcher Diana Bautista, an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. The skin contains some nerve cells that respond only to itch and others that respond only to pain. Others, however, respond to both, and some substances cause both itching and pain.
If itch and pain are closely linked, ...
Since SwingLifeStyle launched its Twitter account, more swingers are tuning in to the microblogging site for instant updates in the swinger world.
Recently SwingLifeStyle has launched a swingers blog that became an overnight success with thousands of followers in a few days. Swingers are tuning in to Twitter to receive updates from the blog postings as well as other swinger related events. -I have my mobile phone hooked up to twitter and SwingLifeStyle so I don't miss any swinger parties - Mike Hatcher
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With their discovery, the scientists Johan Lindgren, Per Uvdal, Anders Engdahl, and colleagues have demonstrated that remains of type I collagen, a structural protein, are retained in a mosasaur fossil.
The scientists have used synchrotron radiation-based infrared microspectroscopy at MAX-lab in Lund, southern Sweden, to show that amino acid containing matter remains in fibrous tissues obtained from a mosasaur bone.
Previously, other research teams have identified collagen-derived peptides in dinosaur fossils based on, for example, mass spectrometric analyses of whole ...
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Statins may be best known for their ability to reduce cholesterol, but a research report appearing in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology (http://www.jleukbio.org) shows that these same drugs could also play a crucial role in the reduction of lung damage resulting from severe abdominal sepsis and infection.
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