Multitasking and Television: a Literature Review

Since its domination over radio, television has been a staple for in-home entertainment. It is the focal point for residents’ attention and for their viewing pleasure. However, the rise of new media technologies, such as cellphones, computers, and the internet, have also seen newfound use dominance in the home. This is of particular note because increased use of both media can result in competing attentions between them. This can result in the old television medium being used with these new media at the same time. This branches off of other types of multitasking with the television, such as eating and talking while watching. The parallel use of television and new media devices has also warranted further study by many researchers who explore the outcomes from this multi-tasking phenomenon and its research. Levy and Gardner’s work (2012) explores the accuracy of students’speech while simultaneously doing tasks on the computer. They hypothesize that more complex actions on the primary task, the computer, interrupt speech, the secondary task (Levy & Gardner, 2012, p. 562).

They relate this to television, in that it is the primary medium and “well practiced routines… like eating” are secondary (Levy & Gardner, 2012, p. 560). They explore this through an experiment with two students working together on computers while conversing. They concluded that “routine tasks can be accomplished without disruption to the talk” and “more complex tasks [show more] hitches in the talk or silence” (Levy & Gardner, 2012, p. 583). Kononova et al.’s (2014) work examines global new and old media multitasking habits amongst college students. Their research questions inquire about the most popular media multitasking pairs, which media are used most frequently, and which are most used as primary and secondary (Kononova et al., 2014, p. 621). They explored these by having students use television, games, music, non-music audio, phones, and the internet in different pairs and then rate their own frequency and their self-perceived attention in each pair (Kononova et al., 2014, p. MULTITASKING AND TELEVISION 3 626). They found that “television as a primary medium was often simultaneously used with [a] phone… and the Internet” (Kononova et al., 2014, p. 627). Contrary to Levy and Gardener’s (2012) thought that television is the primary medium, Kononova et al. (2014) also found that it was used as both primary and secondary, that it was interchangeable with the other media such as music, phones, and the internet (p. 560, p. 628).

They also concluded that this multimedia multitasking “alters individuals’ perceptions of attention they pay to media messages” (Kononova et al., 2014, p. 637). Kitterød (2001) investigates further into the actual method of recording these behaviours by arguing that time spent recording secondary activities can affect recording of primary activities (p. 146). Kitterød (2001) explains that, through showing various Norwegian Time Use studies from 1991, a time series type diary study is not reliable because of the unreliability of human recording (p. 146). Kitterød (2001) also talks about how it is difficult to determine when a person is participating in a primary activity or a secondary activity (p. 150-151). They explain how television can be indeterminate because it is partly “being the main focus of an individual, and partly being an addition activity” (p. 151). This relates to Kononova et al.’s (2014) finding that television could present as the primary or secondary medium, depending on the context it is being used in (Kononova et al. 2014, p. 628). Kitterød (2001) concludes with stating that there needs to be more guidelines for accurate diary keeping for full research of primary and secondary activities (p. 172). These works build on my argument that attention is fragmented between simultaneous use of the old television medium and the new media. Levy and Gardner (2012) show that there can be conflict between primary and secondary tasks. Kononova et al. (2014) solidify the use of television and new media and show that there is attention conflict when they are in simultaneous MULTITASKING AND TELEVISION 4 use.

Kitterød (2001) also questions the nature of primary and secondary tasks and states that they need to be correctly recorded for better results. Further study may include looking into this topic in relation to digital immigrants and digital natives. These two groups hold many different attributes which could explain the reasons why people multi-task while watching television. A prolonged observation of subjects would generate more data to analyze and an after-observation survey would give more in-depth insight into the subject’s reasoning. This would show both digital immigrants and natives viewpoints and consideration of the digital divide would possibly yield greater understanding between the old and the new. Multiple diary observations from multiple people would be conducted to ensure the accuracy of the results. Though, one would believe that there are still many unthought of ways to explore this new and everchanging media multitasking phenomenon.