The Underlying Mechanisms of Multiscreening Effects

2020

Research shows that high levels of media multitasking (either situationally induced or chronic) may be associated with decreased cognitive function. Since cognitive capacity is required for efficie...

International Journal of Advertising, 2017

Multiscreening has been shown to affect consumers' brand attitudes and their memory of advertisements. However, little is known about the prevalence of using multiple screens simultaneously. The aim of this study is to provide insight into multiscreening by examining its prevalence, the composition of screens, and who is likely to multiscreen. A diary study with a representative sample of the Dutch population (n = 2,399) was conducted. First, the results showed that almost 60% of the participants multiscreened at least once. They multiscreened on average three days a week, mostly on Sundays, and on average more than 80 minutes per day. Second, the most prevalent screen combinations were TV-smartphone, TV-laptop, and TV-tablet. Third, multiscreeners were on average 41 years old, predominantly female, have a higher than average education, and own on average more than four screens. Finally, it was found that, in general, younger participants multiscreened longer than older participants.

Journal of Media Psychology, 2021

This article first situates media multitasking in the changing media ecology. Then, grounded in concepts of stress and flow, limited capacity, and threaded cognition, it develops a fourdimensional theory of media multitasking intensity. Based on the key aspects of media multitasking intensity, the subsequent section proposes two primary influences (executive functioning and self-regulation) and one primary outcome (general stress). An application example focuses on several media multitasking issues and the stress outcome for adolescents within their family environment. The final section suggests a few key methodological implications for studying the theory of media multitasking intensity (self-report, and both temporal and social contexts). The theory of media multitasking intensity generates insights about the functional (i.e., valuable) variation within experiences of media as they overlap with and interrupt experiences of the physical and mediated world. Key reference terms: multitasking; media multitasking intensity; executive functioning; selfregulation; stress; adolescents and family A Theory of Media Multitasking Intensity, p-2 A Theory of Media Multitasking Intensity The evolution and profusion of devices facilitating experiences of media has transformed the role of media and media devices in society (Lang, 2013; Valkenburg et al., 2016). Today, the economic growth of organizations, cities, and countries have depended on the proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are embedded in and related to a multitude of facets of human goals and daily life. Some aspects of digital divides are narrowing, and the global society has become dependent economically, politically, and interpersonally on these Internet-connected devices (Pew Research Center, Internet & Technology, 2018; Nord et al., 2019). Media have become assimilated into even the most basic daily goals, such as eating, sleeping, breathing, working, studying, creating, connecting with others, relaxing, and exercising. However, these changes, which have produced a high volume of social, political, health, work, and entertainment information, are also potentially troubling. As the physical environment including homes, classrooms, organizations, and restaurants, and the digital, wired, and wireless environments are filled with more media, there is a growing and unavoidable demand to process more mediated information while learning, speaking with family members, working, exercising, and eating. Simultaneously, these multifaceted devices facilitate the creation of goals that were previously unimaginable or unattainable, and increase interference or overlap between the digital and the physical (Rice et al., 2018; Walsh, 2016). The role of media, and more frequently multiple media, within daily goals has been associated with an increased frequency of media coinciding, complementing, interrupting, supporting, or interfering with other tasks and activities. Media multitasking is conceptualized as the resource allocation that creates the concurrence or integration and competition amongst mediated stimuli or between mediated and physical stimuli. As media transform daily experiences, this has increasingly become a topic of concern (Reinecke & Eden, 2017). Media multitasking is not directly identified as a strictly causal pathological media behavior, yet nonetheless many studies note disadvantages, harms, or costs (Table 1). Few articles address the benefits of media multitasking (Lang & Chrzan, 2015). The majority of scholarship has concentrated on its implications for cognitive functioning (Chein et al., 2017; Van der Schurr et al., 2015). Yet, as Fisher and Keene (2019) have indicated, the existing research often implicitly considers the brain as a black box, and yet implies that increased involvement of media in daily life is fundamentally transforming cognitive functioning (i.e., through neuroplasticity). Media multitasking research has often only assumed that media multitasking is a human adaptation to a changing environment. Further, scholars have lacked lucid conceptualizations of media multitasking or have not defined it within the scope of their research, creating uncertainty in the interpretations of measures and thus empirical findings.-Table 1-Thus this paper will develop and justify a theory of media multitasking intensity to fill existing gaps in the theoretical development, measurement, and testing of the concept of media multitasking. This discussion will begin by contextualizing the theory of media multitasking within theories of stress, flow, limited capacity and load. These existing models become the assumptions on which the causal processes and four dimensions of media multitasking intensity are developed. The subsequent section discusses core influences on, and one outcome from, media multitasking. To illustrate the applicability of the theory, a following section provides an application example involving family and adolescent media multitasking. The final section suggests a few key methodological implications, concerning data collection and contexts. Stress and Flow as a Foundation

Journal of Consumer Marketing, v.32(2), 71-84, 2015

-- Purpose: Advances in technology allow fans to consume live broadcasts of sports events almost anywhere via personal computers, tablets and smartphones. These devices are also frequently utilized as “second screens” to communicate with fellow fans on social media, access additional content, or otherwise multitask during televised game consumption. The purpose of this study is to investigate how simultaneous use of these devices impacts sponsors that receive brand integration during the broadcasts. -- Design/methodology/approach: A 3x2 between-subjects design based on the theoretical framework of dual coding theory was utilized to advance understanding of the influence of second screens on brand awareness and attitudes toward the sponsors of televised events. -- Findings: Results demonstrated that brand recognition and recall was reduced by second screen activity across nearly all audio or visual consumption experiences. Further, while second screen use in an audiovisual setting did not interfere with consumers’ ability to recognize brands, it inhibited their ability to recall brands from memory, providing empirical evidence that second screen use may interfere with elaborative rehearsal and reduce cognitive capacity. -- Practical implications: Given that marketers are investing more resources than ever to achieve brand integration during televised sports events, these findings suggest that brands face challenges in achieving a requisite return (in the form of brand awareness) on their investments. -- Originality/value: This study represents the first empirical investigation of the impact of consumers’ use of “second screens” in the academic literature, and has important implications for advertisers during live sports broadcasts.

Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 2010

While commercial media are increasingly attended to in multitasking contexts, advertising research is dominated by sequential marketing communication models where the consumer is a passive receiver of one type of media at a time. This study represents an attempt to examine media multitasking behaviors and experiences among young consumers. Media multitasking is the practice of participating in multiple exposures to two or more commercial media forms at a single point in time, including traditional, online, social, and entertainment media. Prior research argues that multitasking results in diminished comprehension and performance. Through a qualitative approach with a sample of 64 young consumers involving interviews and collages, this study highlights the paradoxical experiences of media multitasking. The authors develop a conceptual model that explains the personal benefits and costs associated with media multitasking, and proposes its impact on consumers' motivation, ability and opportunity (the MAO model) to process commercial media content. Further, the study suggests an inverted-U relationship between media multitasking and the MAO model and proposes four behavioral coping moderators to this relationship.

Journal of Communication, 2012

This study examined the effects of multitasking on persuasion, including comprehension and counterarguing of persuasive messages, which were presented in three different contexts: (a) nonmultitasking with full attention paid to the message, (b) multitasking with primary attention paid to the message, and (c) multitasking with secondary attention paid to the message. Consistent with predictions, the results suggested that multitasking reduced the actual and perceived levels of comprehension and also reduced counterarguing. The implications for research on persuasion are further discussed.

2013

Advertising avoidance has long been considered as an active elimination of ad effect after conscious processing. However, recent research demonstrates that ignoring (passive avoidance) is also a common strategy used by Internet viewers when they encounter a distracting ad. The act of ignoring due largely to our limited processing capacity (Lang, 2000) induces unconscious processing of ads, which are found to negatively affect subsequent evaluation of these ads. This process is named "distractor devaluation" in both cognitive psychology (Fenske & Raymond, 2006) and advertising research (Duff & Faber, 2011). Recent advertising research demonstrates that when ads are embedded beside a central task, people tend to ignore them when focusing on the task. We examined how people's evaluation, familiarity and memory of an ad differ when they were faced with interactive web games that differed in cognitive and perceptual load. We find that memory, familiarity, and evaluation of peripheral ads only declines with perceptual load. iii To My Father, Mother, and Wife iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been possible without the support of many people. Many thanks to my adviser, Dr. Brittany Duff, who read my numerous revisions and helped make some sense of the confusion. Also thanks to my committee members, Dr. Michelle Nelson, Dr.

This study examines the synergy effect of digital video advertising through television, mobile TV, and the Internet on general outcomes of advertising effectiveness. In a 3 (paired media conditions for ad repetition) × 2 (product involvement) mixed factorial design, we examined empirical outcomes of the cross-media synergy effect. The results show that participants exposed to repetitive ads on paired media of television, Internet, and mobile TV have greater perceived message credibility, ad credibility, and brand credibility than counterparts exposed to repetitive ads from a single medium. The multiple-media repetition also generated more positive cognitive responses, attitude toward the brand, and higher purchase intention than the single-medium repetition. Finally, the cross-platform synergy effect remained robust for different levels of product involvement.

This study examines the effect of media multitasking on the recall and evaluation of radio commercials that differ in congruence with the Internet task. Two experiment showed that congruent radio commercials were more positively evaluated and better recalled than incongruent ones. Results of the experiments differ however in their main effect of task. The first experiment confirmed the negative impact due to limited capacity, but the second experiment disconfirmed this impact and showed that the effect was due to mere exposure. In conclusion, radio offers a persuasive background noise, but only when congruent with the Internet task at hand.

Media Psychology, 2015

Can't see the forest for the trees? The effect of media multitasking on cognitive processing style Media psychology