Kraushaar and Novak examined the different types of student multitasking behaviors and their use of laptops. The research focused on the use of laptops and the students’ learning outcomes. The participants were 97 undergraduates from University of Vermont (UVM) who were taking a junior-level management information system class. These participants were measured through a self-reported laptop usage data and an actual laptop usage data. The actual laptop usage data was measured by installing a spyware program that is able to track the participants’ windows on the laptop. Through the actual laptop usage data, the researchers were able to track if the participants’ activities were productive or distractive multitasking. Productive multitasking involved
…show more content…
According to the authors, media multitasking depends on the motivation of goals and cognitive of the multitasker and the amount of resource demands on the multitasking behavior. Participants for this study were 375 undergraduate and graduate students, ages 18-38, from 59 universities in Beijing, China. The participants were asked how many hours on a typical day did the students spend on the several communication activities. There were 8 items on the list, and they were watching video contents, playing video games, listening to music, studying or reading using media, emailing, texting or instant messaging (IM), posting or messaging on social networking sites (SNS), talking through the phone, and having face-to-face conversations. The level of social interactions were divided into media-based cognitive activities, which included studying, reading and doing homework; media-based entertainment activities, which were playing games, listening to music and watching videos; asynchronous social interactions, such as emailing and texting; and synchronous social interactions, which were talking on the phone, video chatting, and face-to-face conversations. The participants were to indicate the percentage of time spent on another form of communication activity. To measure the well-being of the participants, the participants’ social success, normalcy, and self-control were …show more content…
The participants’ social success and normalcy scores indicated a positive correlation with media multitasking. Media multitasking enhanced social success and normalcy. There was a variance in self-control as synchronous social interaction activities and entertainment-driven media activities were positively related to self-control, but the other 2 types of social interaction activities were negatively related to self-control. The synchronicity of social interaction positively correlated to normalcy and self-control. Synchronous social interaction activities significantly increased perceived social success, but media multitasking during synchronous social were associated with a lower social success. These results show that synchronous social interactions had a higher media multitasking tendency. Despite the consequences of the synchronous social interaction observed in this study, synchronous social interaction builds interpersonal relationships and maintain a good mental
According to the authors, media multitasking depends on the motivation of goals and cognitive of the multitasker and the amount of resource demands on the multitasking behavior. Participants for this study were 375 undergraduate and graduate students, ages 18-38, from 59 universities in Beijing, China. The participants were asked how many hours on a typical day did the students spend on the several communication activities. There were 8 items on the list, and they were watching video contents, playing video games, listening to music, studying or reading using media, emailing, texting or instant messaging (IM), posting or messaging on social networking sites (SNS), talking through the phone, and having face-to-face conversations. The level of social interactions were divided into media-based cognitive activities, which included studying, reading and doing homework; media-based entertainment activities, which were playing games, listening to music and watching videos; asynchronous social interactions, such as emailing and texting; and synchronous social interactions, which were talking on the phone, video chatting, and face-to-face conversations. The participants were to indicate the percentage of time spent on another form of communication activity. To measure the well-being of the participants, the participants’ social success, normalcy, and self-control were …show more content…
The participants’ social success and normalcy scores indicated a positive correlation with media multitasking. Media multitasking enhanced social success and normalcy. There was a variance in self-control as synchronous social interaction activities and entertainment-driven media activities were positively related to self-control, but the other 2 types of social interaction activities were negatively related to self-control. The synchronicity of social interaction positively correlated to normalcy and self-control. Synchronous social interaction activities significantly increased perceived social success, but media multitasking during synchronous social were associated with a lower social success. These results show that synchronous social interactions had a higher media multitasking tendency. Despite the consequences of the synchronous social interaction observed in this study, synchronous social interaction builds interpersonal relationships and maintain a good mental