Paper Info
Title
Stress and multitasking in everyday college life: an empirical study of online activity
Abstract
While HCI has focused on multitasking with information workers, we report on multitasking among Millennials who grew up with digital media - focusing on college students. We logged computer activity and used biosensors to measure stress of 48 students for 7 days for all waking hours, in their in situ environments. We found a significant positive relationship with stress and daily time spent on computers. Stress is positively associated with the amount of multitasking. Conversely, stress is negatively associated with Facebook and social media use. Heavy multitaskers use significantly more social media and report lower positive affect than light multitaskers. Night habits affect multitasking the following day: late-nighters show longer duration of computer use and those ending their activities earlier in the day multitask less. Our study shows that college students multitask at double the frequency compared to studies of information workers. These results can inform designs for stress management of college students.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1145/2556288.2557361
CHI
Keywords
Field
DocType
digital media,day multitask,online activity,computer use,following day,social media,college students multitask,information worker,everyday college life,empirical study,computer activity,college student,stress management,biosensors,stress,multitasking
In situ study,Social media,Computer science,Stress management,Human–computer interaction,Affect (psychology),Human multitasking,Multimedia,Digital media,Empirical research
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
29
1.41
16
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Gloria Mark12006178.23
Yiran Wang2627.68
Melissa Niiya3473.33