Multi-tasking: When are we doing it? [#ChartoftheDay]

Finding the right user, with the right content, at the right time is the perfect scenario. But how do we avoid our message getting distorted by Multi-Tasking?

As a marketer, we take great care in positioning our product/service/offering, which makes distractions from our message very frustrating.

Following on from yesterday's Chart of the Day, the Communications Market Report from Ofcom has provided yet more nuggets of information. This time in the form of Figure 1.21, which highlights the proportion of solus vs simultaneous minutes by grouped activities.

This basically means, The amount of time spent doing one communications activity over doing multiple. The segmentation of these categories can also go a little deeper, into "meshing" and "stacking", which Ofcom describes as...

Meshing: When the simultaneous activities are related e.g. searching for info on a TV programme online while watching it.

Stacking: When the simultaneous activities are not related e.g. instant messaging with a friend while watching TV (not in relation to the programme).

The activity most likely to be undertaken on it's own was watching TV or Films on a TV Set, with 83% of our time dedicated entirely to that singular task, with the remaining 17% doing something else. This could include anything from texting a friend, to Googling the actors to see where you recognise their face from.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, consuming voice and text communications are more often than not consumed whilst, doing other media activities; the example given being 30% of adults engaged in a phone call while watching TV.

• Source: Ofcom, The Communications Market Report 2016
• Data Set: 1,512 UK adults surveyed over the age of 16+
• Date: August 2016