Cognitive control in media multitaskers
Edited by Michael I. Posner, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, and approved July 20, 2009
Commentary
September 15, 2009
Abstract
Chronic media multitasking is quickly becoming ubiquitous, although processing multiple incoming streams of information is considered a challenge for human cognition. A series of experiments addressed whether there are systematic differences in information processing styles between chronically heavy and light media multitaskers. A trait media multitasking index was developed to identify groups of heavy and light media multitaskers. These two groups were then compared along established cognitive control dimensions. Results showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli and from irrelevant representations in memory. This led to the surprising result that heavy media multitaskers performed worse on a test of task-switching ability, likely due to reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task set. These results demonstrate that media multitasking, a rapidly growing societal trend, is associated with a distinct approach to fundamental information processing.
Acknowledgments.
We thank R. Poldrack, S. McClure, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript; S. Tandon for her assistance in collecting the data, B. Robinson and B. Fuller at University of Maryland for their E-Prime implementation of the two- and three-back tasks; and the Stanford CHIMe Lab and the Stanford Memory Lab for their input throughout this research. This work was supported by Stanford Major Grant 1093864–2007-AABSK (to E.O.), Volkswagen Grant 1114143–100-UBBEH (to C.N.), Nissan Grant 1122033–100-UDUPP (to C.N.), and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant (to A.D.W.).
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© 2009.
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Received: April 1, 2009
Published online: September 15, 2009
Published in issue: September 15, 2009
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Acknowledgments
We thank R. Poldrack, S. McClure, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript; S. Tandon for her assistance in collecting the data, B. Robinson and B. Fuller at University of Maryland for their E-Prime implementation of the two- and three-back tasks; and the Stanford CHIMe Lab and the Stanford Memory Lab for their input throughout this research. This work was supported by Stanford Major Grant 1093864–2007-AABSK (to E.O.), Volkswagen Grant 1114143–100-UBBEH (to C.N.), Nissan Grant 1122033–100-UDUPP (to C.N.), and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant (to A.D.W.).
Notes
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
See Commentary on page 15521.
Authors
Competing Interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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Cite this article
Cognitive control in media multitaskers, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
106 (37) 15583-15587,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0903620106
(2009).
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