Examining the association between media multitasking, and performance on working memory and inhibition tasks

Media multitasking has been investigated for its links to executive functions (EFs). Research in the area has produced mixed outcomes which may in part be due to an extreme groups approach to data analysis. This study avoided this issue by using media multitasking as a continuous variable to examine its relationship with the EFs of working memory (WM) and inhibition. Participants completed tasks assessing WM (Digit Ordering Task), inhibition (Spatial Stroop Task) and a task employing both WM and inhibition (Go/No-Go task with low and high task loads). After controlling for the effect of age, IQ and attentional impulsivity, there was a marginally significant association between higher levels of media multitasking and greater WM capacity scores. Participants with higher media multitasking scores also had more efficient go trial performance (Go/No-Go task) which suggested superior processing speed. There was a trend towards significance for higher levels of media multitasking to be associated with poorer performance on the outcome measures of the inhibition tasks (lower accuracy in the Spatial Stroop task incongruent condition, and the Go/No-Go task; go trials low load congruent distractor condition and no-go trials high cognitive load incongruent distractor condition). The different pattern of performance outcomes for the WM and inhibition tasks further illustrates the complexity of understanding the relationship between media multitasking and EFs.