Seddon, AL, Law, AS, Adams, AM and Simmons, FR
Exploring the relationship between executive functions and self-reported
media-multitasking in young adults
http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/9407/
Article
LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the
University more effectively. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by
the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of
any article(s) in LJMU Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research.
You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or
any commercial gain.
The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of the record.
Please see the repository URL above for details on accessing the published version and note that
access may require a subscription.
For more information please contact researchonline@ljmu.ac.uk
http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/
Citation (please note it is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you
intend to cite from this work)
Seddon, AL, Law, AS, Adams, AM and Simmons, FR (2018) Exploring the
relationship between executive functions and self-reported media-
multitasking in young adults. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 30 (7). pp.
728-742. ISSN 2044-5911
LJMU Research Online
Exploring the relationship between executive functions and self-reported media-
multitasking in young adults
Alexandra L. Seddon, Anna S. Law, Anne-Marie Adams & Fiona R. Simmons
Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom
Alexandra L Seddon, School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University,
Byrom Street, Liverpool, L3 3AF, U.K. Tel:+44 151 904 07106324 Email; A.L.Seddon@2013.ljmu.ac.uk
The data that supports the findings of this study will be made publicly available through the Liverpool John
Moores University data repository, LJMU Research Online http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/
Exploring the relationship between executive functions and self-reported media-
multitasking in young adults
Media-multitasking involves simultaneous engagement with information streams from multiple media sources, and is
most prevalent in young adults. Heavy media-multitasking has been associated with differential performance on tasks
involving attentional control and working memory relative to light media-multitasking. The aim of the present study
was to systematically investigate relationships between executive functions and self-reported media-multitasking.
Healthy participants (N = 112, aged 18-25, male N= 36) completed a battery of 10 traditional executive function tasks,
that included assessments of attentional inhibition, response inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.
Scores on the individual executive function tasks were correlated against frequency of self-reported media-
multitasking, but no significant relationships were found. Trait anxiety, however, was found to be significantly
associated with greater frequency of self-reported media-multitasking. The present study found no evidence of a
relationship between the frequency of self-reported media-multitasking and executive functioning. The possible
reasons for this are discussed.
Keywords: media-multitasking; attentional inhibition; working memory; cognitive flexibility; trait
anxiety
Introduction
The way in which individuals engage with media has dramatically altered since the digital media revolution.
Digital media has become a major part of daily life, enabling and driving individuals to be constantly
connected and to communicate via technology (Russo, Fallon, Zhang & Acevedo, 2014). The importance of
the role of digital media corresponds with the exponential growth in accessibility and usage of media
devices (Baumgartner, Weeda, Van der Heijden & Huizinga, 2014). Individuals simultaneously engage with
multiple forms of media within either a single device or by employing multiple devices (Ziegler et al.,
2015). Using an experience sampling method, Moreno, Jelenchick, Koff, Eikoff, Diermyer, & Christakis
(2012) found that for 190 students “media-multitasking” was the most prevalent way in which media was
consumed, with 56.6% of individuals’ time on the internet spent multitasking. The combination most
frequently engaged in is watching T.V. whilst social networking on a smart phone, tablet or laptop (Van
Cauwenberge, Schaap & Van Roy, 2014; Baumgartner et al., 2014). This type of media consumption is
widespread, and has been found to associate negatively with individuals’ academic performance (e.g.,
Bellur, Nowak & Hull, 2015; Junco & Cotten, 2012); mental health and well-being (e.g., Becker, Alzahabi,
& Hopwood, 2013; Xu, Wang & David, 2016) and cognitive functioning (e.g., Ophir, Nass & Wagner,
2009; Uncapher, Thieu, & Wagner, 2016). However, there is also evidence demonstrating no relationship
between media-multitasking and cognitive functioning (Minear, Brasher, McCurdy, Lewis and Younggren,
2013; Murphy, McLauchlan and Lee, 2017). The aim of the present study was to explore systematically the
relationships between executive functions and self-reported media-multitasking.
Media-multitasking and cognitive functioning
Attentional control
In a pioneering study, Ophir et al., (2009) explored the relationship between self-reported media-
multitasking and cognitive function, comparing the performance of heavy media-multitaskers (HMMs) with
light media-multitaskers (LMMs) on a range of cognitive tasks. To investigate sustained attention, they
required participants to complete an AX- continuous performance task (AX-CPT) and found no significant
differences between the performance of heavy and light media-multitaskers, in terms of response times or
accuracy. Whereas Ralph et al., (2015) utilised a metronome task to assess sustained attention (experiment 1
and 3a) and found a significant positive correlation for HMMs and greater response variability, indicating
that HMMs sustained attention is poor in comparison to that of LMMs.
However, Ophir et al., (2009) also included an altered version of the AX-CPT task that featured
distractors. They found that on the distractor version of the task HMMs- performed worse (with slower
response times) than LMMs. Therefore, the authors concluded that HMMs struggle to disregard irrelevant
stimuli, leading the authors to suggest that HMMs display a breadth-based bias in attentional processing.
Further studies have also demonstrated such bias (Cain & Mittroff, 2011; Cardoso-Leite, Kludt, Vignola, Ma
& Green et al., 2016; Gorman & Green, 2016; Wiradhany & Nieuwenstein, 2017) including research using
tasks higher in ecological validity (see Moisala, Salmela, Hietajarvi, Salo, Carlson et al., 2016).
It is important to highlight that a broader scope of attention is not inherently unfavourable. Heavy
media-multitaskers’ distributed mode of attention could be advantageous in terms of faster response times to
stimuli presented simultaneously at different locations (Yap & Lim, 2013) or in facilitating a multi-sensory
integration of information (Lui & Wong, 2012).
In contrast, there is some evidence opposing the media-multitasking breadth-based bias in attention,
with other authors suggesting that frequent media-multitaskers do not differ from light media-multitaskers in
terms of their attentional control. Minear et al., (2013) used the attention network task (ANT) and found no
difference in LMM’s and HMM’s executive attention, alerting attention and orientation of attention
performance.
Similarly, when implementing a flanker task Murphy et al., (2017) found no significant difference in
HMM’s and LMM’s performance, suggesting that their ability to focus attention to stimuli and process
information is no different. However, other research utilising flanker tasks has found HMMs to perform
significantly worse than LMMs (Gorman & Green, 2016) or the opposite, with HMMs performing better
(faster on incongruent trials) than LMMs (Baumgartner et al., 2014). However, the difference in
performance was only marginally significant in this latter study. In a recent review, Uncapher et al., (2017)
suggest that the majority of the research indicates a negative relationship between more frequent media-
multitasking and attentional control.
Response inhibition
Media multitasking has also been explored in relation to behavioural control of responses. Ophir et al.,
(2009) used Verbruggen, Logan, & Stevens’ (2008) stop signal task, Ralph, Thomson, Seli, Carriere and
Smilek (2015) and Gorman and Green (2016) both used the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART)
(Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley & Yiend, 1997), whereas Murphy et al., (2017) used a Go- No go
task. Ophir et al., (2009) found no significant difference in LMM’s and HMM’s performance on the stop
signal task. Similarly, using the SART, Ralph et al., (2015) found no significant correlation between self-
reported media-multitasking and no-go errors (experiment 2, 83 participants). However, when they
replicated the study (experiment 3b) using a larger sample of 152 participants they found a correlation
between MMI and SART that bordered significance, which is further supported by Gorman and Green
(2016) who also found a significant main effect, with HMMs demonstrating poorer performance on the
SART. However, in a further experiment (experiment 4) Ralph et al., (2015) used a vigilance task, a type of
