Understanding the impact of media multitasking on Chinese adolescents in a digital age : a transdisciplinary perspective

Abstract

Media multitasking is increasingly prevalent among the young generation; therefore, it has attracted growing research interest. Media multitasking has been found to have a negative impact on young users’ psychological aspects (e.g., well-being and self-esteem), learning outcomes (e.g., academic performance), and cognition (e.g., executive function). However, previous studies have also generated some contradictory findings. Therefore, methodological improvements are urgently needed to comprehensively examine media multitasking and its impact on adolescents in a more holistic way. To address this need, this research, inspired by the transdisciplinary perspective of educational neuroscience, mainly included four sub-studies.

Study One, with a sample of 1,140 Chinese adolescents, developed and validated a comprehensive scale to measure media multitasking (i.e., the media multitasking scale; MMS). A series of psychometric properties – including construct validity, reliability, and convergent validity – supported that a three-factor structure of the MMS could be further used in the subsequent studies. Study Two, used a cross-sectional design, investigated the relationship between media multitasking and self-esteem, and explored the mediating effects of interpersonal factors (i.e., family functioning and peer influences) within this association. There were a total of 725 Chinese adolescents who participated in this study. The results showed that media multitasking was negatively associated with self-esteem; however, peer influence and family functioning entirely mediated this relationship in a sophisticated manner. In addition, there were also significant differences in specific mediation pathways among gender and age groups. Study Three, a follow-up to Study Two, further explored the relationship among media multitasking, self-esteem, and academic performance through cross-lagged panel and mediation analyses. Data were collected from 447 Chinese adolescents. The results indicated that media multitasking negatively correlated with academic achievement but not with self-esteem, that the relationship between self-esteem and academic performance was reciprocal, and that academic performance may mediate the relationship between media multitasking and self-esteem. Study Four, with 22 adolescents (twelve high media multitaskers and ten low media multitaskers) originally selected from sixty-one participants, compared the executive function between heavy/high and light/low media multitaskers, using a methodological triangulation of survey, behavioral measures, and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The results suggested that the HMMs were generally more impaired than LMMs in executive function measured by self-reported questionnaires but not in their behavioral performances on the cognitive tasks. The results also implied that media multitasking might be associated with the reduced effectiveness in the brain areas responsible for some executive function tasks.

In general, this research has successfully demonstrated that a transdisciplinary perspective could benefit the understanding of media multitasking as well as its impact on subjective psychological aspects, academic performance, cognitive development and neural activation. Moreover, future research should continue advancing this transdisciplinary perspective on media multitasking, an evolving and promising research topic. (447 words)