From a psychological perspective, the ability to quickly multitask by mixing together entirely unrelated media experiences - short and long, work and entertainment, interactive and static - on a single device is anything but mundane.

My research, in collaboration with Professors James Cummings and Byron Reeves at Stanford University, first reported that people switch between content on average every 19 seconds , though more recent research suggests this may even be a conservative estimate. That means a switch to something else and back by the time one reads this sentence.

For content producers, the research results are important to consider in developing media strategy. 75% of content engagement between two switches lasts less than one minute. What used to be a continuous thirty-minute TV experience may now be an individual’s unique thread of content that mixes a TV show episode with email, Facebook, news articles, messaging with friends, and even other videos.

When creating media, content producers should keep in mind the fragmented reality of media experience given the quick 19-second pace of switching between content. Further, individual differences in motivational goals may also lead to different designs when targeting specific audiences.

Not everyone switches at the same rate

Brains that evolved before the advent of media tend to process media content like real-life stimuli. The study investigated actual moment-by-moment laptop use and found patterns of media use that are consistent with “old brain” behaviors designed to sustain and protect the body. “Old brain” refers to two hard-coded goals in our psychological wiring: 1) to sustain ourselves (e.g. by searching for food and potential opportunities for procreation and 2) to protect our physical bodies from danger.

These two motivational goals govern not only how human brains deal with the information and objects in the physical world, but also how they process mediated content. And just like there are individual differences in how brains respond to real life objects and events, so too do people use and respond to media content in different ways - including everything on our laptop screens.

Take, for example, those people who enjoy taking risks and seek thrills by pursuing novel, varied, and exciting sensations (e.g. skydiving, deep-sea diving). These individuals actually spend less amounts of time looking at any particular content, having the fastest pace of switching among our participants. Similar to how they deal with the real world, such risk-seeking individuals prefer novel and varied content in the mediated world of their laptop screens, quickly switch between all manner of work, entertainment, and consumer activities.

On the other end of the spectrum, some individuals prefer less risky and more ordinary or predictable activities in real life. This preference also extends to one’s media use: compared to the rest of the study participants, these individuals switched the most infrequently, staying with a given piece of media content the longest.

Content strategists should consider that the ideal advertisement placement, story structure, and website layout are arguably quite different for reaching today’s audiences, who rapidly switch between and monitor multiple activities rather than traditionally ones that selected between and engaged in just one.

Forbes

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