Research Paper The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 8, Issue 1, DIP: 18.01.131/20200801 DOI: 10.25215/0801.131 http://www.ijip.in | January- March, 2020 © 2020, H K Chhabra & A Irfan; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Working memory task performance among media multitaskers Harpreet Kanwal Chhabra 1 , Ashima Irfan 2 * ABSTRACT The current study explored the Working memory task performance of media multitaskers. The storage i.e. memory and processes concerned with it i.e. working, is called working memory. Due to the availability and easy accessibility of the media technologies, the youth have been found to squeeze more media content simultaneity (Carrier et al., 2009; Rideout et al., 2010). Using several media types simultaneously, they engage in “media multitasking.” It is problematic due to its adverse consequences for cognitive control i.e. executive functioning (Wallis, 2010). For the purpose of the study, the sample comprised of 80 girl subjects randomly chosen from the Government schools of Chandigarh (Age range =14-18 years; Mean age=16.4 years). The subjects were classified into Heavy, Moderate and Light media multitaskers using Media Multitasking Index questionnaire by Ophir et al (2009) and their working memory functioning was studied using OSPAN task. The results arrived at through ANOVA were found to be insightfully meaningful for use with media multitaskers. Keywords: Media multitasking, Working Memory The teachers and parents are concerned about the students’ academic performance as the availability of numerous media technologies has made it easy for the students to get distracted easily resulting in the poor academic performance (Patterson,2017; Wallis, 2010). The easy accessibility and availability of multiple media in the 21 st century has led to the increase in the simultaneous consumption of media use very common and this process of consuming more than one media at a time is prevalent among teenagers (Rideout et al.,2010). Vega (2009) defines media multitasking as a phenomenon where an individual is engaged in different types of media simultaneously, including opening of several windows on a single media platform. According to Bardhi et al., (2010) media multitasking is when an individual participates in several media forms at once, and this rise is common among teenagers (Foehr 2006; Roberts and Foehr, 2008). Working memory refers to the system or mechanism essential to maintain the task-relevant information while performing a cognitive task (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974). 1 Professor, Department of Psychology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India 2 Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India *Responding Author Received: February 23, 2020; Revision Received: March 23, 2020; Accepted: March 31, 2020