research-article

Bored mondays and focused afternoons: the rhythm of attention and online activity in the workplace

Authors:

Shamsi T. Iqbal,

Mary Czerwinski, and

Paul JohnsAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2014

Pages 3025 - 3034

https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2557204

Published: 26 April 2014 Publication History

Abstract

While distractions using digital media have received attention in HCI, understanding engagement in workplace activities has been little explored. We logged digital activity and continually probed perspectives of 32 information workers for five days in situ to understand how attentional states change with context. We present a framework of how engagement and challenge in work relate to focus, boredom, and rote work. Overall, we find more focused attention than boredom in the workplace. Focus peaks mid-afternoon while boredom is highest in early afternoon. People are happiest doing rote work and most stressed doing focused work. On Mondays people are most bored but also most focused. Online activities are associated with different attentional states, showing different patterns at beginning and end of day, and before and after a mid-day break. Our study shows how rhythms of attentional states are associated with context and time, even in a dynamic workplace environment.

Supplementary Material

MP4 File (p3025-sidebyside.mp4)

Download
158.94 MB

References

[1]

Agarwal, R. and Karahanna, E. Time flies when you're having fun: Cognitive absorption and beliefs about information technology usage. MIS Quaterly, 2000, 24 (4). 665--694.

Digital Library

[2]

Begole, J. B., Tang, J. C., Smith, R. B. and Yankelovich, N., Work rhythms: analyzing visualizations of awareness histories of distributed groups. in Proceedings CSCW'02, (2002), 334--343.

Digital Library

[3]

Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper & Row, NY, 1990.

[4]

Czerwinski, M., Horvitz, E. and Wilhite, S., A diary study of task switching and interruptions. in Proceedings CHI'04, (2004), 175--182.

Digital Library

[5]

Dane, E. Paying attention to mindfulness and its effect on task performance in the workplace. Journal of Management, 2011, 37 (4). 997--1018.

[6]

Danziger, S., Levav, J. and Avnaim-Pessoa, L. Extraneous factors in judicial decisions. Proc of the Nat'l Academy of Sciences, 2011, 108 (17). 6889--6892.

[7]

Gonzalez, V. M. and Mark, G., "Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness": Managing Multiple Working Spheres. Proceedings CHI'04, (2004), 113--120.

Digital Library

[8]

Gross, S., Semmer, N.K., Meier, L.L., Kalin, W., Jacobshagen, N. and Tschan, F. The effects of positive events at work on after-work fatigue: They matter most in face of adversity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011, 96 (3). 654--664.

[9]

Hektner, J., Schmidt, J. and Csikszentmihalyi, M. Experience Sampling Method: Measuring the quality of everyday life. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2007.

[10]

Iqbal, S. T. and Horvitz, E., Disruption and Recovery of Computing Tasks: Field Study, Analysis and Directions. in Proceedings of CHI'07, (2007), 677--686.

Digital Library

[11]

Karlson, A. K., Iqbal, S. T., Meyers, B., Lee, K., Ramos, G. and Tang, J., Mobile Task Flow in Context: A Screenshot Study of Smartphone Usage. Proceedings of CHI'10, (2010), 2009--2018.

Digital Library

[12]

Lefevre, J. Flow and the quality of experience during work and leisure. in Czikszentmihalyi, M. and Czikszentmihalyi, I. eds. Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988.

[13]

Macey, W. and Schneider, B. The meaning of employee engagement. Indust and Organ'l Psych, 2008, 1. 3--30.

[14]

Mark, G., Iqbal, S., Czerwinski, M., and Johns, P. (2014). Capturing the Mood: Facebook and Face-toFace Encounters in the Workplace. Proceedings of CSCW'14, Baltimore, MD, ACM Press.

Digital Library

[15]

Mark, G., Voida, S. and Cardello, A. "A Pace Not Dictated by Electrons": An Empirical Study of Work Without Email Proc. of CHI'12, (2012), 555--564.

Digital Library

[16]

Massimini, F. and Carli, M. The systematic assessment of flow in everyday experience. in Czikszentmihalyi, M. and Czikszentmihalyi, I. eds. Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988.

[17]

Posner, J., Russell, J. A. and Peterson, B. S. The circumplex model of affect: An integrative approach to affective neuroscience, cognitive development, and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 2005, 17. 715--734.

[18]

Russell, J. A. A circumplex model of affect. J of Personality and Soc Psychology, 1980, 39. 1161--1178.

[19]

Schallberger, U. The influence of personality characteristics on self reports of working conditions. Zeit. f. Experimentelle Psych, 1995, 42 (1). 111--131.

[20]

Schaufeli, W., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Rom, V. and Bakker, A. The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness studies, 2002, 3. 71--92.

[21]

Scherer, K. R., Banziger, T. and Roesch, E. A Blueprint for Affective Computing: A sourcebook and manual. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Digital Library

[22]

Stone, A. A., Hedges, S. M., Neale, J. M. and Satin, M. S. Prospective and crosssectional mood reports offer no evidence of a "Blue Monday" phenomenon. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1985, 49. 129--134.

[23]

Tice, D., Baumister, R., Shmuei, D. and Muraven, M. Restoring the self: Positive affect helps improve self-regulation following ego depletion. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2007, 43 (3). 379--384.

[24]

Tschan, F., Banziger, T. and Roesch, E. Discrete emotions in interaction with superiors: Some are more role-related, some are more relationship related. in Rigotti, T., Korek, S. and Otto, K. eds. Gesund mit und ohne Arbeit (S. 289--304), Pabst Science Publishers, Lengerich, 2010, 289--304.

[25]

Webster, J. and Ho, H. Audience engagement in multimedia presentations. Data Base for the Advancement in Information Systems, 1997, 28 (2). 63--77.

Digital Library

[26]

Weick, K. and Sutcliffe, K. Mindfulness and the quality of organizational attention. Org Sci, 2006, 17. 514--524.

Digital Library

Cited By

Hosseinkashi YTankelevitch LPool JCutler RMadan C(2024)Meeting Effectiveness and Inclusiveness: Large-scale Measurement, Identification of Key Features, and Prediction in Real-world Remote MeetingsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373708:CSCW1(1-39)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637370
Das Swain VGao LMondal AAbowd GDe Choudhury M(2024)Sensible and Sensitive AI for Worker Wellbeing: Factors that Inform Adoption and Resistance for Information WorkersProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642716(1-30)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642716
Ferguson SMassimi M(2024)Circle Back Next Week: The Effect of Meeting-Free Weeks on Distributed Workers’ Unstructured Time and Attention NegotiationProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642175(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642175
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Bored mondays and focused afternoons: the rhythm of attention and online activity in the workplace
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Computing / technology policy

Recommendations

Workplace Indicators of Mood: Behavioral and Cognitive Correlates of Mood Among Information Workers
DH '16: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Digital Health Conference

Positive wellbeing in the workplace is tied to better health. However, lack of wellbeing in the workplace is a serious problem in the U.S, is rising continually, and can lead to poor health conditions. In this study we investigate factors that might be ...
Read More
Attention to Attention

Organizational theory and research has increased attention to the determinants and consequences of attention in organizations. Attention is not, however, a unitary concept but is used differently in various metatheories: the behavioral theory of the ...
Read More
“Instant Happiness”: Smartphones as tools for everyday emotion regulation
Highlights
- We investigated smartphone-based emotion regulation in daily life and its associated psychological consequences using experience sampling and qualitative ...
Abstract
Smartphone use has become an indispensable aspect of daily life for billions of people. Increasingly, researchers are examining the impact of smartphone use upon psychological well-being. However, little research has investigated how ...
Read More

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '14: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2014

4206 pages

ISBN:9781450324731

DOI:10.1145/2556288

General Chairs:
Matt Jones
Swansea University, Wales, UK
,
Philippe Palanque
Université Paul Sabatier, France
,
Program Chairs:
Albrecht Schmidt
University of Stuttgart, Germany
,
Tovi Grossman
Autodesk Research, Canada

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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]

Sponsors

SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 April 2014

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

CHI '14

Sponsor:

SIGCHI

CHI '14: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 26 - May 1, 2014

Ontario, Toronto, Canada

Acceptance Rates

CHI '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 465 of 2,043 submissions, 23%;

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

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

115
Total Citations
View Citations
2,011
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)213
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)14

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Hosseinkashi YTankelevitch LPool JCutler RMadan C(2024)Meeting Effectiveness and Inclusiveness: Large-scale Measurement, Identification of Key Features, and Prediction in Real-world Remote MeetingsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373708:CSCW1(1-39)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637370
Das Swain VGao LMondal AAbowd GDe Choudhury M(2024)Sensible and Sensitive AI for Worker Wellbeing: Factors that Inform Adoption and Resistance for Information WorkersProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642716(1-30)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642716
Ferguson SMassimi M(2024)Circle Back Next Week: The Effect of Meeting-Free Weeks on Distributed Workers’ Unstructured Time and Attention NegotiationProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642175(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642175
Saha KGupta PMark GKiciman EDe Choudhury M(2024)Observer Effect in Social Media UseProceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642078(1-20)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642078
Suh JHowe ELewis RHernandez JSaha KAlthoff TCzerwinski M(2023)Towards Tailoring Just-in-time Adaptive Intervention Systems for Workplace Stress Reduction: Exploratory Analysis of Intervention Implementation (Preprint)JMIR Mental Health10.2196/48974Online publication date: 17-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.2196/48974
Saha KChandrasekharan E(2023)Future of Workplace Conversational AI-driven Personal Assistants: Promises and PerilsProceedings of the 15th Annual Meeting of the Forum for Information Retrieval Evaluation10.1145/3632754.3632939(133-135)Online publication date: 15-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632754.3632939
Zhu RShi LSong YCai Z(2023)Integrating Gaze and Mouse Via Joint Cross-Attention Fusion Net for Students' Activity Recognition in E-learningProceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies10.1145/36108767:3(1-35)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610876
Kawakami AChowdhary SIqbal SLiao QOlteanu ASuh JSaha K(2023)Sensing Wellbeing in the Workplace, Why and For Whom? Envisioning Impacts with Organizational StakeholdersProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36102077:CSCW2(1-33)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610207
Lin CWu CHuang PLai YHo YChung CChang Y(2023)Scanning or Simply Unengaged in Reading? Opportune Moments for Pushed News Notifications and Their Relationship with Smartphone Users' Choice of News-reading ModesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36042687:MHCI(1-26)Online publication date: 13-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3604268
Ahmad APloetz T(2023)Challenges in Using Skin Conductance Responses for Assessments of Information Worker ProductivityProceedings of the 2023 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers10.1145/3594738.3611360(33-38)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3594738.3611360
Show More Cited By

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents