research-article

The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress

Authors:

Gloria Mark,

Daniela Gudith, and

Ulrich KlockeAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2008

Pages 107 - 110

https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357072

Published: 06 April 2008 Publication History

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Abstract

We performed an empirical study to investigate whether the context of interruptions makes a difference. We found that context does not make a difference but surprisingly, people completed interrupted tasks in less time with no difference in quality. Our data suggests that people compensate for interruptions by working faster, but this comes at a price: experiencing more stress, higher frustration, time pressure and effort. Individual differences exist in the management of interruptions: personality measures of openness to experience and need for personal structure predict disruption costs of interruptions. We discuss implications for how system design can support interrupted work.

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Zhu ELi WZhao CWang J(2024)Promoting the Sustainable Development of Enterprises: Unraveling the Dual Impact of Informal Communication on Employee Affect and Problem-Solving CapabilitiesSustainability10.3390/su1613571016:13(5710)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/su16135710
Kreamer LRogelberg S(2024)Starting Your Day with Dread or Excitement? The Effects of Meeting Scheduling Cadences on Anticipated Daily OutcomesGroup & Organization Management10.1177/10596011231223263Online publication date: 7-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011231223263
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Index Terms

The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI design and evaluation methods
    2. HCI theory, concepts and models
  2. Interaction design
    1. Interaction design theory, concepts and paradigms

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Published In

CHI '08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2008

1870 pages

ISBN:9781605580111

DOI:10.1145/1357054

General Chairs:
Mary Czerwinski
Microsoft Research, USA
,
Arnie Lund
Microsoft, USA
,
Program Chair:
Desney Tan
Microsoft Research, USA

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 06 April 2008

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CHI '08

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CHI '08: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 5 - 10, 2008

Florence, Italy

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CHI '08 Paper Acceptance Rate 157 of 714 submissions, 22%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

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Zhu ELi WZhao CWang J(2024)Promoting the Sustainable Development of Enterprises: Unraveling the Dual Impact of Informal Communication on Employee Affect and Problem-Solving CapabilitiesSustainability10.3390/su1613571016:13(5710)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/su16135710
Kreamer LRogelberg S(2024)Starting Your Day with Dread or Excitement? The Effects of Meeting Scheduling Cadences on Anticipated Daily OutcomesGroup & Organization Management10.1177/10596011231223263Online publication date: 7-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1177/10596011231223263
Grau JMayer SStrecker JGarcia KBektas K(2024)Gaze-based Opportunistic Privacy-preserving Human-Agent CollaborationExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3651066(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Goyal NChang MTerry M(2024)Designing for Human-Agent Alignment: Understanding what humans want from their agentsExtended Abstracts of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613905.3650948(1-6)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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Lingler ATalypova DJokinen JOulasvirta AWintersberger P(2024)Supporting Task Switching with Reinforcement LearningProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642063(1-18)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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