Associations Between Multitasking and Alcohol Use, Caffeine Consumption, and Dietary Behaviors Among Emerging Adults

Introduction: Emerging adults consume high levels of media every day. With the development of new technology and devices, multitasking with media has become increasing prevalent. Because multitasking is common among young adults, it is likely that exposure to advertising for many unhealthy products such as alcohol, caffeinated beverages, and unhealthy foods, could be greater for this susceptible audience. However, little research has explored the possible unhealthy behaviors associated with multitasking. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine if there is a relationship between multitasking and the consumption of alcohol use, caffeinated beverages, and unhealthy foods among emerging adults.

 Methods: Participants (844 first-year undergraduate students enrolled in a large, southwestern university: 58.1% female, 50.7% White, m age 18.98) completed an online survey of a variety of self-reported health behaviors. Multitasking was measured by asking participants to indicate media use behaviors in which they engaged in simultaneously including: use the Internet, text/talk on the phone, watch TV, use applications on smartphone, play video games, drive, and do school work. Each instance of multitasking received one point and was summed into a multitasking score (range: 0-21 multitasking instances). Past week alcohol use (range: 0-7 days consumed) was assessed. A caffeine index was created to reflect the number of times soda, diet soda, coffee, or energy drink was consumed in the past week (range: 0-112 times). Past week consumption of fast food, sweet snacks (e.g. candy, cookies), and salty snacks (e.g. crackers or chips), all highly marketed products, were also individually assessed (range: 0-28 times). Linear regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between multitasking and alcohol and caffeine use controlling for age, race/ethnicity and gender. For diet variables, BMI was also controlled.

 Results: Greater multitasking was significantly associated with greater past week alcohol use (p=0.02), caffeine consumption (p=0.001), fast food consumption (p=0.004), and salty snacks (p=0.001). Multitasking was not associated with sweet snack consumption.

 Conclusions: Emerging adults live in a world where multitasking is commonplace. However, this study suggests that multitasking is associated with multiple unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol use, caffeinated beverage consumption, and unhealthy dietary behaviors. Given that many of these products are marketed heavily through many channels of media, the use of multiple forms of media simultaneously likely multiplies the effects of exposure beyond that through any one channel.  Further research is needed to determine if advertising exposure is the mechanism through which these associations exist.