The Relation Between Media Multitasking, Intensity of Use and Well-being in a Sample of Ethnically Diverse Emerging Adults

There is substantial evidence that media multitasking and intense digital media use may be associated with poor psychological well-being among youth. At the same time the evidence about these associations is inconsistent, and it appears that youth characteristics such as social anxiety and narcissism may play a moderating role in the relation between aspects of digital media use and well-being. This study examined media multitasking and intensity of technology use as predictors of affect and self-esteem as well as the moderating role of social anxiety and narcissism in the relation between multitasking, intensity of use and affect and self-esteem. Data were collected via a cross-sectional study of ethnically diverse emerging adults. The results showed that a higher percent of time spent media multitasking predicted lower self-esteem and higher negative affect. Significant interaction effects were found between multitasking and social anxiety on self-esteem and between multitasking and narcissism on positive affect. That is, at high levels of social anxiety, individuals with high levels of multitasking reported higher self-esteem than those with low levels of multitasking. Moreover, at high levels of narcissism those with high levels of multitasking reported increased positive affect when compared to those with low levels of multitasking. Our findings suggest that intense digital media use may be problematic for some youth's psychological well-being, but also beneficial for other youth.