Looking to connect with Anglophone Canadians while they’re watching TV? You might also want to try catching them online. According to new numbers from the Media Technology Monitor (MTM), nearly three-quarters (74%) of Anglophone Canadians multitask online while they’re watching TV.

The MTM study of 4,002 Anglophone Canadians was measured using a phone survey and follow-up online questionnaire. Data in the study comes primarily from the online survey, unless otherwise noted.

About half of those who reported multitasking (38%) said they always or often used the internet while watching TV, a group that MTM calls “heavy multitaskers.” Over a fifth of that group watched another video online while watching TV, with a third of that group saying they research products seen in commercials. Half of heavy multitaskers reported reading online news content while watching TV.

Heavy multitaskers tend to be in the 18 to 34 year old demographic (56%) and/or students (42%), and are likely to have kids in the home (42%) and a household income over $100,000 (46%).

Those in the heavy multitasker group are also more likely to be using social media, with Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter and Reddit being the most-used sites by that group.

Heavy multitaskers are most likely to be on email while watching TV, with browsing the web and visiting social networking as the next two most-likely activities.

Smartphones (67%) are the multitasker’s most used device for multitasking, with computers (53%) and tablets (41%), falling behind.

The number of Canadians overall who report watching TV and accessing the internet at the same time has tripled since the fall of 2005, when 25% of Anglophone respondents reported doing so.

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