IM Users Feel Less InterruptedTracy Staedter chats with R. Kelly Garrett, assistant professor in the school of communication at Ohio State University.
R. Kelly Garrett There are compelling arguments saying that instant messaging promotes interruption and others that say it reduces it. Garrett investigates what's occurring in practice.
2:21 PM r.kelly.garrett: Hi Tracy.
me: Hello. Thanks for taking the time to chat.
First....let
me just get some introductions out of the way: could you tell me a
little bit about yourself and the kind of research you do?
2:23 PM r.kelly.garrett: Sure. I'm on the faculty in the School of Communication at the Ohio State University.
I do research in a couple areas. Today we're talking about the influence that new communication technologies are having in the workplace.
2:25 PM r.kelly.garrett:
I'm also very interested in the ways that the Internet is shaping
political communication. For example, does personalization promote
political fragmentation, as Sunstein suggests? And how do people's
political attitudes shape how they rate the news online.me:
I understand that you recently published some research that said
workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less
interruption than colleagues who did not.
r.kelly.garrett: Yes, that's the bottom line.
me: What motivated that study?
2:30 PM r.kelly.garrett:
The Internet has become such an important part of the work today, but
we still don't understand its consequences very well. The IM
interruption question is particularly interesting because there were
compelling arguments that it could promote interruption and that it
could reduce it. We wanted to see which was occurring in practice,
2:33 PM
me: I have to say that I do feel interrupted when people IM me, so let's talk
more about the study a little bit.....where did you get your information"?
2:34 PM r.kelly.garrett:
Our data come from a national telephone survey of computer-using
workers. We asked respondents how strongly they agreed with the
statement "I rarely complete a work task without being interrupted" Their answers ranged from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree" on a five-point scale.
So, interruption is in the eyes of the beholder in this case.
2:36 PM me:
I'd guess that most people would say that they are almost always
interrupted when trying to complete a task, right?
2:37 PM r.kelly.garrett: Right, a large proportion of people strongly agree with that statement.
Checking numbers, hang on
2:38 PM me: hanging
r.kelly.garrett:
Okay, nearly half (49%) of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed
with the statement, which suggests that interruption is an issue in the
modern work environment That
said, you could see the glass as half full, too. About 1/2 the people
we spoke to felt that interruption wasn't a big problem. But the interesting thing is to compare interruption levels between those who use IM and those who don't.
2:41 PM r.kelly.garrett: Almost 35% of IM non-users said they strongly agreed, versus only about 25% of IM users
In other words, IM users were less likely to report being interrupted at work than IM non-users2:42 PM me:
So what does it suggest, then? That IM users are used to being pinged
via IM and so when other things happen, like the phone rings or someone
pops into the office, the person doesn't get wigged out? They remain zen
r.kelly.garrett: Let me talk about a couple other findings that help us make sense of these results. We
also looked at how much time employees spent on communiciation during
the work day, and how frequently they engaged in these exchanges. We found that IM users and non-users spent about the same amount of time in communication.
2:46 PM But IM users report that they communicate (with friends, family, and colleagues) more frequently than non-users.
In other words, IM appears to be used for short, frequent communication.
Putting these finding together, we suggest that IM use may be strategic.
2:48 PM Getting pinged may be disruptive, but compared to a phone call or a knock on the door it's pretty easy to ignore.
me: true
r.kelly.garrett:
Other researchers have shown that people do just that: they wait to
respond to messages until they are done with the task at hand, and/or
until they feel like engaging in a new conversation
2:49 PM In some workplaces, IM is used to schedule face-to-face or phone meetings
me: But do people treat IM the way the do email or maybe even SMS?
do they wait to reply? it feels more like a phone ring to me, like you have to answer right away.
2:51 PM r.kelly.garrett:
Well, our data don't answer that question very well. We can only read
between the lines. But based on what other researchers have done, I
think that people have found novel ways of using IM. It's not just
email all over again.
2:52 PM For
example, IM is viewed as more informal. You can ask a quick question of
several coworkers and not feel like you're creating an undue burden on
them because, after all, its just IM. If they don't respond, maybe they
were away from their desk or they didn't notice, etc. etc. That's
different from how people tend to think about email.
2:54 PM Another
thing to remember is that how people use these technologies is
evolving. It takes time for people to figure out what a technology is
good for, what "proper" use looks like, and so forth. I think that
people have begun to get the hang of IM, but I also expect that it's
use will continue to change over time.
2:58 PM r.kelly.garrett:
IM is better for some types of work than others. It appears to be very
effective for time-sensitive collaborations and for low-overhead
exchanges. For example, if you're part of a team working on a
web-development project and you need to be able to get short quick
answers about how to handle a detail of the site, IM might be great. It
doesn't work so well for discussing complex ideas... (I hope our
conversation doesn't make this point too obvious.)
me: What about you? How would you say your own use of IM has changed over the last couple of years?
r.kelly.garrett: So, I don't use IM that often. It's perfect for a few projects, but I'm more likely to use email most of the time... me: Me too
3:01 PM
r.kelly.garrett: It's a matter of choosing the right tool for the job, and I think people are learning to do that.
me: I know you're time is short but do you have a few more minutes to talk
briefly about how the internet is impacting politics? At least what
angle you're looking at in that regard?
r.kelly.garrett: Sure, we can talk politics.
me: next: religion! :)
r.kelly.garrett: LOL
me: So how is the internet affecting politics these days?
3:02 PM r.kelly.garrett: Well, as I mentioned at the start of our conversation, my biggest interest right now is how people are using online news If
you get your news online, you've just got incredible control over what
you see/read/hear. So I'm looking at how people's opinions shape their
use and assessment of the news they encounter in the online environment. There's a big debate over how biased people are.
me: what debate? Whose NOT biased?
3:05 PM r.kelly.garrett: If people systematically avoid anything they disagree with, than our democracy is in trouble I
argue that when people are deciding what news to look at, they look for
arguments that support their own opinion, but they don't avoid other
perspectives.
If I'm right, then people won't try to screen out everything they disagree with That
doesn't mean that people's use of the news is completely impartial,
just that they are as focused on avoiding the other side as some
scholars have argued.
This distinction matters a lot when you're talking about online news.
3:09 PM me:
But how is that different from pre Internet days? I could just chose
the radio show or tv program that conforms to my viewpoint?
3:11 PM r.kelly.garrett:
Sure, people had some control over what they watched before the
Internet. But the Internet brings a much greater number of choices and
a much wider range of viewpoints from which to choose. Pick an issue
and you can find a political blogger who've got lots to say on the
subject. That's very different from choosing between a couple TV news
stations, a couple newspapers, etc.
me: So if people are finding online news that appeals to them, how is it that they might be getting other viewpoints? how are they NOT avoiding the other viewpoint.
Hmmm
3:14 PM r.kelly.garrett:
There are plenty of news outlets that present multiple points of view.
The idea that journalist should present compete perspectives is not
new. My claim is that given a choice between a more balanced piece of
journalism and one that tends to be more one-sided, individuals will
often choose the balanced one (as long as their views are included
among those described).
me: Interesting
3:15 PM r.kelly.garrett: There are some related questions, too For
example, if you do look at a news story that includes multiple
viewpoints, how does seeing the other point of view shape your
perceptions of the quality of that story.
Again, I argue that it's opinion-reinforcement that people care about most If you don't see your viewpoint included, you'll conclude that the story is of low quality.
But seeing other points of view doesn't matter that much.
3:18 PM me: Do people actually think that the Internet will greatly polarize politics? ruin democracy
r.kelly.garrett: Yes, there are many people who are concerned about the polarizing potential of the Internet. I
tend to take a more moderate view. I think that the Internet will
change politics, but that the consequences aren't all bad. For example,
we know that the Internet has contributed to a small uptick in
political participation. And I think that it could also help people to
better assess which candidate best matches their political views. At
the same time, though, I think the technology will make voting down
party lines more likely.
3:22 PM me: Wait, why would it promote voting down party lines?
3:25 PM r.kelly.garrett:
Well, first I should point out that this is just a hunch. I don't have
data on this subject yet. But the idea is that sources such as
political blogs, party web sites, liberal and conservative web sites,
etc., make it much more feasible for people to find out how their party
thinks they ought to vote. Getting this kind of information was much
more difficult historically.
3:26 PM me: interesting
3:27 PM r.kelly.garrett: Yeah, well I'll let you know if I'm right once I get some data...
me: Well, listen thanks so much for taking the time to chat with me about your work.
I will let you get back to your interruptions
r.kelly.garrett: I enjoyed the conversation. |
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