Media Multitasking, and Social Well-Being free essay sample

Comparatively, face-to-face communication was strongly associated with positive social well-being indicators. Simply owning a phone or having a computer or television in their room was shown to have little impact on well-being. Researchers theorize probable causes of these relationships, possible implications of these finding, and call for study designs to address interconnection (Pea et al. , 2012). Introduction Researchers had previously addressed social development and the consequences of modern day media use on cognitive development. However, researchers at Stanford University were concerned with the lack of focus of multitasking and the general oversight to consider time spent in face-to-face communication in studies concerning social relationships and the effect of media use. This study examined those oversights in a large-scale survey on modern electronics and media use how they affect social well-being in girls 8 to 12 years old (Pea et al. , 2012). Modern day cognitive development and how the use of electronics, computers, Facebook, and other similar media effects our development is something that personally interests me. We will write a custom essay sample on Media Multitasking, and Social Well-Being or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Sherry Turkle’s work in this field is something I find extremely interesting. Participants The subjects of this study were 3,461 North American girls ages 8 to 12 years who submitted information through a Discovery Girls magazine online survey. A half-page advertisement was posted in the September 2010 issue of Discovery Girls that directed them to the online survey. They were told if they completed the survey they would be entered into a drawing to win a free iPod. However, this study was limited to young girls only with access to a computer and internet. 5% of participants responded they had access to a computer in their home, well above national average. Information on income, parent education, race, or ethnicity data was not collected (Pea et al. , 2012). Measures amp; Instruments According to Pea (2012), â€Å"[The] level of media multitasking was defined as the mean number of media a person simultaneously consumes when consuming media† (p. 330). Researched created a media multitasking index (MMI) for all participants. For each of the six categories asked regarding media use, researches asked â€Å"On an average day, how long do you X† (defined as hi). Then, researchers asked â€Å"On an average day, which X-ing, how often are you doing the following other activities at the same time? † (defined at mi,j). Then, according to Pea (2012), â€Å"it was then a straightforward matter to compute the MMI as follows: mi,j? hi Thus, the MMI is a count of the number of additional media an individual is using when using a medium† (p. 330) Procedures Six categories for media use were used along with a seventh category of face-to-face communication. Categories were as follows: watching video content (TV, YouTube, movies, etc. , including playing video games; listening to music; reading or doing homework; e-mailing or sending messages/posting on Facebook, MySpace, etc. (not including Facebook chat); texting or instant messaging (including Facebook chat); talking on the phone or video chatting; and participating in face-to-face conversations (Pea et al. , 2012). Young girls were asked â€Å"On an average day, how long do you X† with X being one of the seven categories. They were asked this question for all categories. This question was then followed by a multiple choice scale with options indicating time ranging from never to more than 4 hours. Numerical values were assigned for each choice: never (0), less than 1 hour (. 5), about 1-2 hours (1. 5), about 2-3 hours (2. 5), about 3-4 hours (3. 5), or more than 4 hours (4. 5). If the girl answered with another other than â€Å"never† she was asked â€Å"On an average day, which X-ing, how often are you doing the following other activities at the same time? † This was followed by a matrix presenting the same seven categories along with the same multiple choice scale questions. Hours of sleep was based upon a single question (Pea et al. , 2012). According to Pea (2012), social success was measured by asking questions such as, â€Å"I feel like I have a lot of friends,† â€Å"People my age understand me,† â€Å"I feel like I have a lot of close friends,† â€Å"I find it easy to make friends,† â€Å"I find it easy to keep friends,† â€Å"I feel like I’m important to my friends,† and â€Å"I feel accepted by people my age† (p. 330). Young girls were then asked questions such as â€Å"Compared to people my age, I feel normal,† â€Å"I often feel like I’m not normal compared to people my age,† and â€Å"I often feel rejected by other people my age,† to establish feelings of normalcy (Pea et al. , 2012). Young girls were also asked how many friends they had that they though their parents would find as a bad influence followed by 4 numerical answers increasing by 1 starting from 0 up to â€Å"3 or more friends† (Pea et al. , 2012). Results Results showed girls ages 6 to 12 years old total media use averaged at 6. 90 hours, with the 25th percentile being 4. 3 hours and the 75th percentile being 8. 2 hours. These levels were lower than a previous study, however, that study also included male users and older children who are typically heavier media users than young girls. The average amount of face-to-face communication was 2. 10 hours. The 25th percentile was 0. 42 hours and the 75th percentile was 2. 8 hours. The average MMI, or the time spent using other media simultaneously was 1. 4 hours. Although participants shared some variance for individual items as the source of positive feelings, only 10. 1% of them ranked online friends more positively than in-person friends. Even those who were heavy online users did not rate their online friends more positively than in-person friends. In fact, just about half of the participants associated negative feelings with on-line friends while the other half attributed negative feelings to in-person friends (Pea et al. 2012). In a more in-depth regression analysis, participants who listened to music, talked on the phone or online in some form or another were often multitasking, suggesting these activities were not the focus of attention. However, face-to-face communication was negatively associated with media multi-tasking, as was reading. This could simply because face-to-face communication is a denominator and it was an outcome of the computation or it could suggest that face-to-face communication is valued more and the participants didn’t engage in other activities while talking. Having a television in the participants’ bedroom was positively associated with face-to-face multitasking (Pea et al. , 2012). Social success was positively associated with face-to-face communication. Conversely, video use was strongly associated with negative feelings of social success. Reading was reasonably associated with negative feelings of social success. Older girls rather than younger girls felt less social success in their lives. Feelings of normalcy were consistent with social success as video use and reading were negatively associated with normalcy feelings. Face-to-face communication was again positively associated with normalcy feelings. Media multitasking and age were also associated with negative feelings of normalcy (Pea et al. , 2012). Video use, talking on the phone, and online interactions were intensely associated with having friends in which their parents would disapprove of. Face-to-face communication was negatively related to this; however media multitasking was positively associated to having friends parents would disapprove of (Pea et al. , 2012). Video use and online communication was negatively associated with the number of hours of sleep the participants slept. Face-to-face communication was positively associated, and age was negatively associated. Having a television in the participants room, owning a cell phone, and media multitasking were also negatively associated to the amount of sleep they received (Pea et al. , 2012). Summary Specific types of media use such as video, online communication, and media multitasking were regularly associated with negative socioemotional results. These negative results for video are consistent with other studies, but the online communication and media multitasking results are completely new. On the other hand, face-to-face communication was regularly associated with positive socioemotional results. While former research found pre-adolescents and adolescents felt closer to their friends if they communicated online more, the results found in this study may suggest that face-to-face communication and online communication are not interchangeable (Pea et al. , 2012). Media multitasking was associated with negative socioemotional results. Participants felt less social success, feelings of normalcy, having parents who perceived their friends as bad influences, and slept less. The results concerning media multitasking may suggest problems with cognitively control of attention and should be observed with care (Pea et al. , 2012). Face-to-face communication was consistently associated with greater social success, greater feelings of normalcy, more sleep, and fewer friends the parents of the participant thought were poor influences. These results are highly suggestive.