Why Do Young People Multitask With Multiple Media? Explicating the Relationships Among Sensation Seeking, Needs, and Media Multitasking Behavior

Abstract

This study investigates the reason that young people multitask with multiple media. This study extends uses and gratification (U&G) theory by adding arousal theory to explain the mediated relationships among sensation seeking, needs for media use, and media multitasking behavior, thus, synthesizing previous studies that have supported the direct effect models. This project is based on an online survey of 938 valid respondents from four universities in different areas of Taiwan. The data supported the proposed mediation model and results show that high convenience, high social, and low efficiency needs for media use perfectly mediate the effect of sensation seeking on media multitasking frequency.