When a Picture is Worth Less Than a Thousand Words

The use of technology, and particularly social media, has be come exceedingly common, especially among young adult consumers. Consumers multitask; check Facebook while in meetings, tweet while watching TV, and text while partying with friends. Although consumers seemingly assume that these media add to their overall enjoyment and wellbeing, we contend that such media multitasking can detract from enjoyment in some consumption situations. Specifically, a consumer participating in a hedonic consumption experience (e.g., a visit to a national park) may inadvertently diminish his/her enjoyment of the experience by constantly taking photos intended for Facebook. In essence, the desire to document the experience via pictures, tweets, or texts, distracts the consumer from the experience. However, because consumers take such activities for granted, they do not recognize them as distractions. Hence, we propose that the use of technology during a hedonic consumption episode becomes an implicit distraction, or a distraction that people fail to recognize. These implicit distractions may lead to unique effects not observed in response to more explicit distractions that people are aware of.