Abstract
This study examines the effect of online interruptions on task performance. Two hundred and eighty players played a game designed to simulate an online environment decision-making process. The manipulation was achieved through an intervention design. Participants were exposed to messages in six interruption conditions as they played: (i) slow-fragmented text, (ii) fast-fragmented text, (iii) slow-fragmented image, (iv) fast-fragmented image, (v) continuous text, and (vi) continuous image. We compared text-only interruptions and image interruptions within different rates of interruption. The results indicate that participants with continuous text interruptions display the same performance as those without interruptions; participants who experience fast text interruptions perform the best; participants exposed to slow text interruptions performed poorly on tasks. These results imply the conditions in which controlling the rate and richness of online interruptions could improve task performance.
Original language | English |
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Article number | e202229 |
Journal | Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies |
Volume | 12 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Oct 2022 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- experiment
- information richness theory
- online interruption
- task performance
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication
- Education
- Media Technology
- Computer Science Applications