Media multitasking in adolescence
Name
13423_2016_Article_1036.pdf
Size
525.25 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
6b2e11aac7fcd479e49ca82a82c78205
Author(s)
Cain, Matthew S.
Finn, Amy S.
Leonard, Julia
Gabrieli, John D. E.
Date Issued
May 2016
Journal
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
Publisher
Springer US
Citation
Cain, Matthew S. et al. “Media Multitasking in Adolescence.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 23.6 (2016): 1932–1941.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Media use has been on the rise in adolescents overall, and in particular, the amount of media multitasking—multiple media consumed simultaneously, such as having a text message conversation while watching TV—has been increasing. In adults, heavy media multitasking has been linked with poorer performance on a number of laboratory measures of cognition, but no relationship has yet been established between media-multitasking behavior and real-world outcomes. Examining individual differences across a group of adolescents, we found that more frequent media multitasking in daily life was associated with poorer performance on statewide standardized achievement tests of math and English in the classroom, poorer performance on behavioral measures of executive function (working memory capacity) in the laboratory, and traits of greater impulsivity and lesser growth mindset. Greater media multitasking had a relatively circumscribed set of associations, and was not related to behavioral measures of cognitive processing speed, implicit learning, or manual dexterity, or to traits of grit and conscientiousness. Thus, individual differences in adolescent media multitasking were related to specific differences in executive function and in performance on real-world academic achievement measures: More media multitasking was associated with poorer executive function ability, worse academic achievement, and a reduced growth mindset.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1036-3
