Media multitasking occurs when someone uses two or more media sources within the same period, such as checking a phone while watching television. Attention moves between screens, which changes how people notice and remember messages.
Viewers often move between television, phones and laptops during the same programme. Some check messages, while others search for a product or discussion connected to what they see. Advertisers compete with those parallel activities for a limited share of attention.
These changing habits demonstrate how multitasking is increasingly playing a significant role in changing our media consumption patterns. Contrary to what most people think, watching TV is no longer the hundred percent engaging activity as it was before.
There are multiple factors that have contributed to this change. Factors such as age, device usage and ownership, and household types (like multi-generation and nuclear family) all play a role to determine media consumption.
How has media consumption changed?
So, how exactly has multitasking changed media consumption habits? Well, it’s no secret that consumers today are able to multitask like never before and one of the primary reasons for this is the development and advancement of the smartphone.
Smartphones today are equipped with all sorts of features; from eBooks to news channels, you can access practically anything with just a few clicks. Adding to this, nothing has made things more accessible than social media.
Social media platforms offer all kinds of entertainment opportunities to users, from short videos to memes and even interesting pieces of news. In the past, when an ad came on, viewers were either required to sit through it or switch the channel to something more interesting until the ad ended and their program came back on. That’s not the case anymore.
Now, viewers can simply pick up their phones and focus on something else while the ad plays out. Not just during ads, but viewers also tend to do this during any scene in a movie or TV show that does not interest them and capture their attention.
Viewers today know they don’t have to sit through ads or other kinds of content that doesn’t interest them. Today, they have a wide range of content available to them that they can watch. As television consumption falls, consumption of streaming content rises, too.
Platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime provide viewers with the opportunity to watch content uninterrupted without any ads. Hence, this has prompted advertisers to come up with more innovative ways to display advertising content to viewers in hopes of making an impact.
These habits are especially prevalent amongst the younger generations than older generations. It’s that younger generations such as millennials have a shorter attention span; it’s about the fact that consumers from these groups potentially juggle three screens at the same time. In fact, Generation Z also tends to juggle five screens at once.
Hence, these consumption patterns make television marketing tactics, such as commercials, are one of the least impactful ways to attract this audience’s attention. Hence, this is why tactics such as influencer marketing are gaining traction to draw in such audiences.
Conclusion
For advertisers to come up with successful marketing campaigns, they need to go beyond diving consumers based on their generations. In fact, what’s important is to segment consumers based on their media consumption patterns, which is increasingly being changed due to the rise of multitasking.
Marketers should measure which screen the audience uses, the activity taking place there and the point at which attention changes. That evidence can shape creative length and timing. Device ownership or age alone cannot explain whether someone watched, skipped or acted on a message.
Concurrent use does not guarantee combined attention
A viewer may hold a phone while ignoring the television, or search for information prompted by the programme. Researchers and advertisers should distinguish simultaneous device use from active engagement with both sources. Self-reported habits can also differ from observed behaviour, so the measurement method belongs beside any percentage.
