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In the digital world of today, multitasking with media is inevitable. Research shows, for instance, that American youths spend on average 7.5 h every day with media, and 29% of that time is spent processing different forms of media simultaneously (Uncapher et al., 2017). Despite numerous studies, however, there is no consensus on whether media multitasking is effective or not. In the current paper, we review existing literature and propose that in order to ascertain whether media multitasking is effective, it is important to determine (1) which goal/s are used as a reference point (e.g., acquiring new knowledge, obtaining the highest number of points in a task, being active on social media); (2) whether a person's intentions and subjective feelings or objective performance are considered (e.g., simultaneous media use might feel productive, yet objective performance might deteriorate); and finally (3) whether the short- or long-term consequences of media multitasking are considered (e.g., media multitasking might help attain one's present goals yet be conducive to a cognitive strategy that leads to lesser attentional shielding of goals). Depending on these differentiations, media multitasking can be seen as both a strategic behavior undertaken to accomplish one's goals and as a self-regulatory failure. The article integrates various findings from the areas of cognitive psychology, psychology of motivation, and human-computer interaction.

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The aim of the current study is to determine how the level of state and trait anxiety differs between youth athletes of different performance levels and furthermore whether there are correlations between performance levels and psychomotor variables in the selected tasks. A sample of 97 boys, aged 11–12 years, practising soccer represented two groups: A – high performance level and B – lower performance level. Participants completed a state and trait anxiety inventory and performed selected psychomotor tests. The analyses demonstrated that the higher the levels of anxiety were, the shorter was the response time and more accurate were the responses in selected psychomotor tests. For the whole group, r = -0.224, p < 0.05, and for group B, r = -0.333, p < 0.05. Moreover, the findings showed a moderator effect of level (group A vs B) on reaction time, which was almost significant in state anxiety and significant in trait anxiety. For group B, trait anxiety was negatively related to reaction time (b = -0.002, SE = 0.001, t = -2.93, p = .004, 95% CI [-0.004, -0.001]). This means that the higher the trait anxiety was, the shorter was the reaction time in group B, but there was no significant effect in group A. The results of the study confirmed the negative correlation between the trait and state anxiety and reaction time. The higher the anxiety was, the shorter was the response time of child soccer players. Future research should determine whether athletes’ performance levels do affect performance under stress and replicate the study with different samples such as girls and different sport disciplines.