Simultaneous mobile internet and television usage has been getting very popular. Few, if any, studies explicated generational differences in this type of media multitasking behaviors. This study is the first to examine whether different generations have different behaviors and motives in the mobile internet-television media multitasking context. A national face-to-face survey with the probability proportional to size random sampling method was employed. The results showed that Web generation was most likely to
perform mobile internet-television media multitasking behavior, followed by X generation and Baby Boomer generation. Web generation paid most attention to the contents on the mobile Internet, X generation focused their attention on either television or mobile internet, and Baby Boomer generation paid most attention to the contents on television. The results also showed that the motives driving mobile internet-television media multitasking behavior were the same across generations, including “habit and convenience” and “cognition and status.” All these findings supported the proposed theory of
cross generation media multitasking behavior and the proposed method of analyzing the motives driving media multitasking behaviors.
