The Impact Of Media Multitasking Behavior On Cognitive Control

Worldwide,the Internet penetration rate has reached 48%,with 15-24-year-olds having the highest percentage of Internet usage(ITU,2017).In China,the Internet penetration rate reached 59.6%,among which the Internet users in the 20-29 age group accounted for the highest proportion,reaching 26.8%,about 829 million*26.8%(CNNIC,2019).With the development and popularization of Internet information technology,the number of people accessing information and the convenience of information acquisition have increased.This development has two important effects on individual behavior:one is to increase the time of individual online activities(Lenhart,2015);the other is to change the individual's media usage,that is,individuals are more inclined to media multitasking(Brasel&Gips,2011;Judd&Kennedy,2011).Media multitasking has become a habitual behavioral pattern used by individual media(Brasel&Gips,2011),and studies have shown that media multitasking can affect an individual's cognitive function.Cognitive control is the central component of cognitive function(Diamond,2013;Botvinick et al.,2001),However,existing research is still controversial about whether frequent media multitasking will affect and how it affects cognitive control.Therefore,this study aims to summarize the previous research conclusions and further verify and examine the impact of media multi-task behavior on cognitive control in the context of Chinese college students.Therefore,the following studies have been carried out around this goal.In the first study,the meta-analysis method was used to quantitatively describe the previous researches on media multitasking and cognitive control(inhibition control,cognitive flexibility,working memory).The results of the meta-analysis support the scattered attention hypothesis that frequent media multi-tasking distracts the individual's attention,making it impossible for the individual to filter the irrelevant information of the environment,thus affecting the individual's inhibition control,cognitive flexibility and working memory.In the second study,the questionnaire method was used to measure the relationship between media multi-task of college students and the cognitive control in their everyday lives,which further verified the results of meta-analysis,that is,college students who media multitask more frequently reported having more problems in the three domains of cognitive control in their everyday lives.In the third study,three central components of cognitive control(inhibition control,cognitive flexibility,working memory)were measured using standardized performance-based tasks(Change Detection Task,Number Letter task,2/3-back).Results showed that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli.Partially verified the results of the meta-analysis.