The Effects of Fragmented and Continuous Interruptions on Online Task Performance

Eilat Chen Levy 1, Yaron Ariel 1 *
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1 Academic College of Emek Yezreel, Jezreel Valley, ISRAEL
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 12, Issue 4, Article No: e202229. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/12404
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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.
Keywords: task performance, online interruption, information richness theory, experiment

CITATION

Levy, E. C., & Ariel, Y. (2022). The Effects of Fragmented and Continuous Interruptions on Online Task Performance. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 12(4), e202229. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/12404

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