Is Media Multitasking the Norm?

Gfk MRI's annual Media Day survey reveals that multitaskers might have tipped the scale in their favor.

They have reported that adults who engage in other media activities while watching TV, reading magazines or newspapers, and using the internet almost equal those adults who exclusively use one of the four media groups at a time.  The percentages of the non-multitaskers, who exclusively use one of the four media groups, over the past two years, has dropped at least 3 percent, except for TV users.

The largest change, not surprisingly, was in internet use, where users who exclusively focus on the internet dropped from 54 percent to 45 percent.

The American public's focus has become increasingly fragmented with the constant innovation and melding of the internet, social networking, cell phones, and technological accessories.  It has come to the point where we are no longer satisfied with completing one task at a time and hunger for the complications of multitasking.

It would appear that multitasking is no longer seen as a hinderance to our performance and has stepped into a new light.  Instead of being seen as a fragmentation of our focus it is now the way we efficiently get things done.  It is becoming an expectation that we must be able to multitask to the nth degree in order to satisfy our drive to fit as much work/social networking/online shopping as possible.

I don't believe it is unreasonable to think that Gfk MRI's annual Media Day survey's will continue to show a decrease in the number of exclusive users of the four major media groups.  The question is: Where will it stop and how will it affect the expectations of what we can fit into a single day?

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