A Pilot Study on Timing of Immediate Information Affects Work Performance and Langer Mindfulness Negatively Predict Work Performance

Abstract

Instant messaging (IMing) applications are already widely used in work settings, but some argue that the intrusive nature of instant messaging can affect productivity. Langer Arian Mindfulness is considered to be associated with work performance. The purpose of the present pilot study was to explore the impact of instant messaging and Langer Mindfulness on work outcomes. Total 30 participants were recruited, a mixed design experiment was conducted, Participants were divided into a control group (do not received IMing during the task) and an experimental group (received and responded to 8 immediate messages during the task). Participants were first asked to fill out the Langer Mindfulness scale (LMS), then were asked to watch a 12-minute video and complete a test on the content of the video to test their memory of the video content. Within the experimental group, the timing of the pop out of the 8 instant messages was carefully designed to be divided into masked messages (appearing 10 seconds before the appearance of the to-be-tested message) and non-masked messages (appearing 10 seconds after the appearance of the to-be-tested message). Result indicated that for instant message effect, after controlling for subjective difficulty of subjects on the post-experiment test, only non-masked immediate information impaired subject performance, which suggested the timing sensitive of interruption. For effect of mindfulness, the LMS negatively predicted task performance. Stepwise regression showed that the Flexibility subscale of LMS negatively predicted task performance, and the higher the Langer Mindfulness, participants were more vulnerable to be affected by immediate information.