Procrastination out of Habit? The Role of Impulsive Versus Reflective Media Selection in Procrastinatory Media Use

The pervasive access to media options seriously challenges users' self-regulatory abilities. One example of deficient self-regulation in the context of media use is procrastinationimpulsively giving in' to available media options despite goal conflicts with more important tasks. This study investigaes procrastinatory media use across 3 types of media (TV, computer, smartphone) from a dual-systems perspective, taking both person-level and situation-level predictors into account. Results from a 14-day long diary study (N= 347) suggest that procrastinatory media use is driven by automatic media selection, which is facilitated by strong media habits (person level) and low motivation for behavioral control (situation level). The results underline the value of a dual-systems perspective on media choices in our media-saturated environment.