Media Multitasking in Medical Students: A Theory-Based Approach to Understanding this Behavior.

Phenomenon: While technology is useful and encouraged in medical school, the effect of media multitasking on academic performance remains concerning. Past research has investigated performance and cognitions associated with college students' in-class media multitasking behavior, but the extent and correlates among medical students is relatively unknown.

Approach: We surveyed medical students at our institution to quantify media multitasking behaviors and related beliefs, and we collected corresponding course grades.

Experimental Effects of Tweets Encouraging Social Distancing: Effects of Source, Emotional Appeal, and Political Ideology on Emotion, Threat, and Efficacy.

Context: Public health officials and celebrities use social media to provide guidance to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Messages apply different promotional strategies to motivate behavior change, likely yielding divergent reactions from partisan audiences. The Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) suggests that perceived threat for a negative outcome should impact perceived need for the advocated health behavior, which should be more appealing to an audience if perceived it to be efficacious and feasible.

Child-Oriented Marketing on Cereal Packaging: Associations With Sugar Content and Manufacturer Pledge.

Objective: To assess sugar content and child-oriented promotional features on packaging among cereals manufactured by companies with varying Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative (CFBAI) participation.

Design: Ready-to-eat dry cereals (n = 159) were purchased from southeastern US grocery stores in September 2018. Content analysis of 159 ready-to-eat dry cereal boxes, coded for sugar content and presence of 8 child-oriented features.

A mobile app identifies momentary psychosocial and contextual factors related to mealtime self-management in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.

Effective diabetes problem solving requires identification of risk factors for inadequate mealtime self-management. Ecological momentary assessment was used to enhance identification of factors hypothesized to impact self-management. Adolescents with type 1 diabetes participated in a feasibility trial for a mobile app called MyDay.

Mobile Momentary Assessment and Biobehavioral Feedback for Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes: Feasibility and Engagement Patterns.

Background: Integration of momentary contextual and psychosocial factors within self-management feedback may provide more specific, engaging, and personalized targets for problem solving.

Methods: Forty-four youth ages 13-19 with type 1 diabetes (T1D) were provided a Bluetooth meter and completed the 30-day protocol. Participants were randomized to "app + meter" or "meter-only" groups.

Sharing and helping: predictors of adolescents' willingness to share diabetes personal health information with peers.

Objective: Sharing personal information about type 1 diabetes (T1D) can help adolescents obtain social support, enhance social learning, and improve self-care. Diabetes technologies, online communities, and health interventions increasingly feature data-sharing components. This study examines factors underlying adolescents' willingness to share personal T1D information with peers.

Use of Commonly Available Technologies for Diabetes Information and Self-Management Among Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes and Their Parents: A Web-Based Survey Study.

Background: For individuals with Type 1 diabetes (T1D), following a complicated daily medical regimen is critical to maintaining optimal health. Adolescents in particular struggle with regimen adherence. Commonly available technologies (eg, diabetes websites, apps) can provide diabetes-related support, yet little is known about how many adolescents with T1D use them, why they are used, or relationships between use and self-management.

Do Emotional Appeals in Public Service Advertisements Influence Adolescents' Intention to Reduce Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages?

Mass media campaigns are a commonly used approach to reduce sugary drink consumption, which is linked to obesity in children and adolescents. The present study investigated the direct and mediated effects of emotional appeals in public service advertisements (PSAs) that aired between 2010 and 2012 on adolescents' intention to reduce their sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption. An online randomized experiment was conducted with a national sample of adolescent respondents ages 13 to 17 years old (N = 805).

Predicting US Infants' and Toddlers' TV/Video Viewing Rates: Mothers' Cognitions and Structural Life Circumstances.

There has been rising international concern over media use with children under two. As little is known about the factors associated with more or less viewing among very young children, this study examines maternal factors predictive of TV/video viewing rates among American infants and toddlers. Guided by the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction, this survey study examines relationships between children's rates of TV/video viewing and their mothers' structural life circumstances (e.

The Nature and Predictive Value of Mothers' Beliefs Regarding Infants' and Toddlers' TV/Video Viewing: Applying the Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction.

Viewing television and video programming has become a normative behavior among US infants and toddlers. Little is understood about parents' decision-making about the extent of their young children's viewing, though numerous organizations are interested in reducing time spent viewing among infants and toddlers. Prior research has examined parents' belief in the educational value of TV/videos for young children and the predictive value of this belief for understanding infant/toddler viewing rates, though other possible salient beliefs remain largely unexplored.

Does the Effect of Exposure to TV Sex on Adolescent Sexual Behavior Vary by Genre?

Using the Integrated Model of Behavioral Prediction, this study examines the effects of exposure to sexual content on television by genre, specifically looking at comedy, drama, cartoon, and reality programs, on adolescents' sex-related cognitions and behaviors. Additionally, we compared the amount and explicitness of sexual content as well as the frequency of risk and responsibility messages in these four genres. Findings show that overall exposure to sexual content on television was not related to teens' engagement in sexual intercourse the following year.

Games for learning: vast wasteland or a digital promise?

Research about emerging best practices in the learning sciences points to the potential of deploying digital games as one possible solution to the twin challenges of weak student engagement and the need for more robust achievement in literacy, science, technology, and math. This chapter reviews key cross-cutting themes in this special volume, drawing perspective from the context of the current United States program and policy reform. The authors conclude that digital games have some unique potential to address pressing educational challenges, but that new mechanisms for advancing purposeful research and development must be adopted by both policymakers and industry leaders.

Influence of licensed spokescharacters and health cues on children's ratings of cereal taste.

Objective: To investigate whether licensed media spokescharacters on food packaging and nutrition cues affect young children's taste assessment of products.

Design: In this experimental study, children viewed 1 of 4 professionally created cereal boxes and tasted a "new" cereal. Manipulations included presence or absence of licensed cartoon spokescharacters on the box and healthy or sugary cereal name.