HCC: Small: Multitasking as a Collaborative System: Examining the Millennial Generation

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This research investigates how Millennials, having grown up with the Internet, can become effective future information workers. Studies are suggesting that multitasking with digital media is associated with errors, stress and degraded performance. This study provides two main research contributions. First, to date no one has conducted an in situ investigation of multitasking among the Millennial generation. Second, whereas most investigations have approached multitasking as an individual activity, this research will instead take a new perspective on multitasking as a collaborative social system. This study will examine whether connectivity leads to information overload and distraction, how online media experience affects learning, communication, and behavior offline, as well as the relationship between degree of connectivity and work performance. This study will use a mixed-methods approach involving ethnographic techniques, sensors, and diaries to collect detailed activity. The results can contribute to an understanding of how young adults use digital media, it can inform the design of requirements for future technologies, and it can be used for the design of media literacy programs in K-12 schools. Broader impacts: The results will contribute towards plans and policies that schools and organizations can enact to help young people manage their work and use of digital devices more effectively. A media literacy curriculum developed from this research can serve as a model for K-12 schools. While there has been much concern given to preventing worker "burnout" and lowering stress among information workers, this study can provide concrete results of how digital technologies contribute to distraction and stress, especially among the Millennial generation. The study will elicit requirements for technology design that could help people better manage multitasking, increase situational awareness and reduce errors. Results of this study will help young people improve their effectiveness in using digital media, which could improve future work life, productivity and satisfaction. Finally, the project will provide educational impact through the participation of undergraduate and graduate in the research and through the development of a new doctoral seminar.