Interruptions in the Workplace: An Exploratory Study Among Digital Business Professionals

The use and role of digital technologies can bring significant benefits to individuals, organizations, and businesses, such as ubiquitous access to information, rapid communication, and productivity gains. Technological change, however, also poses challenges for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), including increased and unexpected interruptions caused by digital technologies while performing tasks in the workplace. To mitigate the negative consequences of interruption overload, companies need to develop strategies, so that employees can work effectively and efficiently. Against this background, we conducted an exploratory study to allow digital business professionals to describe their general perception and management of interruptions. The research results reveal that most interruptions can be classified as either an intrusion (35%) or a distraction (28%). Although beneficial outcomes of work interruptions can be observed, they have an overall detrimental impact on both psychological well-being and work performance, with the strongest negative impact on work performance (29%). The analysis also revealed that most digital business professionals predominantly deal with an interruption immediately while the primary activity remains temporarily unfinished (43%), or they finish the primary activity first before starting the interrupting activity (43%). This exploratory study concludes with contributions and implications for research and practice, thus providing a valuable foundation for future research activities on interruption science.