Abstract

Multitasking with media is increasingly popular among all age groups. Previous research has revealed that this media consumption behavior affects the way people respond to advertising messages, but such research thus far has predominantly focused on young adults. This study, using eye-tracking technology, compares how children (8 to 12 years) and adults (18 to 65 years) navigate their attention when simultaneously using television and Internet content, and further investigates the implications for cognitive (i.e., brand recognition) and attitudinal (i.e., advertising irritation) advertising outcomes. A 2 × 2 (age category: children versus adults; task: single medium tasking versus media multitasking) between-subjects experiment was conducted (N = 121). The results show that children switch more between different media than adults, but this switching does not affect advertising outcomes in turn. Furthermore, both children and adults devote less attention to the ad when media multitasking compared to single tasking. There was a positive effect of attention on brand recognition but not on ad irritation. In sum, this study suggests that children are more distracted than adults when media multitasking but respond similarly to advertising embedded in the media. In particular, media multitasking lowers advertising attention for both children and adults, which in turn decreases brand recognition.

摘要

与媒体的多任务处理在所有年龄段中都越来越流行。先前的研究表明，这种媒体消费行为会影响人们对广告信息的响应方式，但迄今为止，此类研究主要集中在年轻人身上。这项研究使用眼动追踪技术，比较了儿童（8至12岁）和成年人（18至65岁）在同时使用电视和互联网内容时如何吸引他们的注意力，并进一步调查了认知（即品牌认知）的含义以及态度（即广告刺激）广告效果。A 2×2（年龄类别：儿童与成人;任务：单个介质任务与媒体多任务）受试者之间-进行实验（Ñ = 121）。结果表明，与成人相比，儿童在不同媒体上的切换更多，但这种切换不会依次影响广告效果。此外，与单任务相比，在进行媒体多任务处理时，儿童和成人对广告的关注都较少。注意对品牌识别有积极作用，但对广告刺激却没有。总而言之，这项研究表明，在进行媒体多任务处理时，儿童比成年人更分散注意力，但对嵌入媒体中的广告的反应相似。特别是，媒体多任务处理降低了儿童和成人的广告注意力，从而降低了品牌知名度。