Keeping Up with Media Multitasking: An Eye-Tracking Study among Children and Adults to Investigate the Impact of Media Multitasking Behavior on Switching Frequency, Advertising Attention, and Advertising Effectiveness

Multitasking with media is increasingly popular among all age groups. Previous research has revealed that this media consumption behavior affects the way people respond to advertising messages, but such research thus far has predominantly focused on young adults. This study, using eye-tracking technology, compares how children (8 to 12 years) and adults (18 to 65 years) navigate their attention when simultaneously using television and Internet content, and further investigates the implications for cognitive (i.e., brand recognition) and attitudinal (i.e., advertising irritation) advertising outcomes. A 2 x 2 (age category: children versus adults; task: single medium tasking versus media multitasking) between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 121). The results show that children switch more between different media than adults, but this switching does not affect advertising outcomes in turn. Furthermore, both children and adults devote less attention to the ad when media multitasking compared to single tasking. There was a positive effect of attention on brand recognition but not on ad irritation. In sum, this study suggests that children are more distracted than adults when media multitasking but respond similarly to advertising embedded in the media. In particular, media multitasking lowers advertising attention for both children and adults, which in turn decreases brand recognition.