1. Millennium Multitasking: The impact (or otherwise) of technology on multitasking behaviour Dr Caro Partridge Chimera, University of Essex

2. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera eSociety project Investigating the impact of technology on six areas of society –Shopping –Travel –Indoor leisure –Outdoor leisure –Media use –Social life Using time use studies to investigate change

3. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Home Online dataset Longitudinal study; 3 waves Time-use diary and household survey 303 households completed time use diary in all three waves 35 categories of time use Aggregated variables of interest to eSociety project

4. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Primary activities Before considering multi-tasking, consider primary activities How people spend their time according to socio-demographic variables –Male / female (n=125m, 176f) –Children / no children (n=106 with, 107 without) –(Age group; n = too small ) Consider results over the course of a day (normal waking hours) to examine trends.

5. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Sample results: Social life (1)

6. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Sample results: Social life (2)

7. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Sample results: TV viewing (1)

8. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Sample results: TV viewing (2)

9. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Multitasking: The problem with numbers. 303 completed diaries – but a lot of missing survey data. Pooled data to increase n –Those who went online between W1 and W2, or between W2 and W3. –Those who got a mobile phone between W1 and W2, or between W2 and W3.

10. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Hypotheses Consider: –Impact of going online for the first time –Impact of getting a mobile phone H1: Going online will show increased multitasking in home-based activities (e.g. social life, indoor leisure), but have no impact on outdoor activities H2: Getting a mobile phone may show increased multitasking in any activity. –The mobile phone fits into the folds of everyday life (Ling, 2004)

11. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Multitasking during outdoor leisure and shopping: Very little secondary activity on these variables regardless of ICT presence or absence.

12. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Multitasking during indoor leisure (net)

13. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Multitasking during TV-viewing (net)

14. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Multitasking during social life (mobile)

15. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Multitasking during travel (mobile)

16. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera But…

17. www.essex.ac.uk/chimera Conclusions Going online & getting a mobile phone have a small but noticeable impact on amount of multitasking for certain variables. But secondary activities on these variables account for only 2-3 minutes per hour. Multitasking is taking place but difficult to assess the impact of ICT when considering different times of day. Data (1998-2001) preceded mobile phones and broadband becoming ubiquitous, and did not include a variable for texting. Next step: Aggregating secondary activity over time slots.