Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether media multitasking affects cognitive performance. The participants (N = 66) performed an n-back working memory task to determine if modulation of media multitasking was dependent on task demand. A 2 by 2 within-subject’s ANOVA tested the potential influence of task demand and the option to media multitask on task performance. As predicted, performance was better in the less demanding task (0-back) than the more demanding task (2-back) and was better when there was no option to media multitask (no video) versus the option to media multitask (video). I expected to replicate and extend Ralph and others (2020) finding that participants multitasked less when the task was higher demand. Surprisingly, the results did not replicate this past study, and there was no significant difference in multitasking behavior across the two task demands. Instead, multitasking was common in both tasks.