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Activities that require focused attention, such as reading, are declining among American youth, while activities that depend on multitasking, such as instant messaging (IMing), are increasing. We hypothesized that more time spent IMing would relate to greater difficulty in concentrating on less externally stimulating tasks (e.g., academic reading). As hypothesized, the amount of time that young people spent IMing was significantly related to higher ratings of distractibility for academic tasks, while amount of time spent reading books was negatively related to distractibility. The distracting nature and the context of IMing in this population are described.

Participating in a research activity by volunteering in a research study or by writing a short research paper as part of a course requirement relates to favorable perceptions of psychology and research, greater knowledge of procedures associated with participation, and other demographic and situational variables. College students who volunteered to participate in a research study were more satisfied with their experiences than those who wrote papers as part of their research activity. Gender, grade expected, employment status, major, class size, and number of participation events related to satisfaction with experiences and perceptions of psychology and research. The findings are relevant to academic departments implementing or evaluating the existence of a participant pool. Perceptions of Psychology and ResearchWe performed four one-way ANOVAs and post hoc LSD tests (if needed) to examine differences in perceptions of psy-

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