American and Canadian researchers recently revealed the benefits of multicommunication at work and in the classroom.
- Multicommunication does not affect task completion, learning satisfaction and psychological engagement.
- People using multiple communication tools simultaneously can leverage information learned in side conversations to improve their primary task.
- To effectively manage the expectations of their interlocutors, multicommunicators must ensure that they are aware of this approach and that they feel comfortable with it.
In the digital age, multicommunication has become common as people frequently juggle different communication tools, such as a smartphone, tablet or computer. This is seen as a source of distraction, as our attention can be diverted from one task or another. This is for example the case at work during a meeting that drags on. Some people take advantage of this to sort their emails or respond to a message.
“At first glance, it’s easy to give multicommunication a negative connotation. But we need to focus on how people manage their multicommunication rather than the behavior itself,” said Jinglu Jiang, professor at the State University of New York at Binghamton (United States). Thus, with her team, the researcher wanted to understand all of its implications and consequences for individuals and groups in various professional, personal and social contexts.
Multicommunication: it is beneficial when we are able to balance our divided attention
To do this, they conducted a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior Reports. As part of their work, the scientists reviewed 68 cohorts on interpersonal communication published over the past two decades. These have been carried out in educational, commercial and social contexts. Most research has focused on individual-level mechanisms and impacts.
The results showed that multicommunication did not always constitute an obstacle to learning satisfaction, task completion and psychological engagement. It can be very beneficial when people are able to balance their divided attention and effectively manage the expectations of the person they are communicating with. “Not everyone can be a ‘superman’ in this area, but if you message a colleague for information that might be useful while you’re in a meeting, it could make your contribution to the meeting more effective “, Jinglu Jiang explained.
Be comfortable with the multicommunicating approach to benefit from its advantages
To effectively manage interlocutors’ expectations, multicommunicators must ensure that they are aware of the multicommunicative approach and that they feel comfortable with it. “Good management of this behavior at the individual and team level makes the difference between multicommunication as a distraction and multicommunication as an asset,” concluded the lead author of the study.
