Academic media multitasking profiles among German adolescents and their associations with digital media practices and ICT self-efficacy

Digital technologies increasingly embed academic work within adolescents’ everyday media practices, making academic–media multitasking an important feature of contemporary learning. This study examined patterns of academic–media multitasking and their associations with ICT-related learning experiences, gender, and general ICT self-efficacy. Using the German ICILS 2023 sample ( N = 5,065), with 4,465 students contributing to the latent profile analysis, four profiles were identified, capturing meaningful variation in the intensity of concurrent digital engagement. The High multitasking profile was the largest, comprising 40.4% of the analytic sample. Students in this profile reported significantly higher general ICT self-efficacy than students in the other three profiles, highlighting an association between intensive digital engagement and stronger perceptions of technological competence. Gender further differentiated selected profile contrasts. Overall, the findings indicate substantial heterogeneity in how adolescents combine academic work with everyday digital media use and highlight the value of a person-centered perspective for understanding academic–media multitasking within contemporary digital learning environments.