Instant Messaging Decreases Interruptions

Those that have followed my work will know that I don’t buy the microeconomic reasoning that requests for assistance should be minimized because they lead to a decrease in personal productivity. On the contrary, I have been arguing that the willingness to trade personal productivity for connectedness is a hallmark of web culture, and that drive for connectedness trump any personal productivity hits [Boyd’s Law]. I also maintain that the productivity of the extended network of web denizens is the only sensible way to measure productivity, if it is relevant to measure it at all.

There is new evidence that suggest that the personal productivity hit may be negligible. or perhaps even a productivity boost, decreasing the overall numbers of interruptions when workers use instant messaging as a medium for interoffice communication and coordination:

[from Instant Messaging Proves Useful In Reducing Workplace Interruption]

Employers seeking to decrease interruptions may want to have their workers use instant messaging software, a new study suggests. A recent study by researchers at Ohio State University and University of California, Irvine found that workers who used instant messaging on the job reported less interruption than colleagues who did not.

The study challenges the widespread belief that instant messaging leads to an increase in disruption. Some researchers have speculated that workers would use instant messaging in addition to the phone and e-mail, leading to increased interruption and reduced productivity.

Instead, research showed that instant messaging was often used as a substitute for other, more disruptive forms of communication such as the telephone, e-mail, and face-to-face conversations. Using instant messaging led to more conversations on the computer, but the conversations were briefer, said R. Kelly Garrett, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State.

I still argue that responding to requests — whatever their source — from people that you want to remain closely connected to is a positive thing, and worth whatever the productivity hit might be, but that doesn’t mean that you should try to minimize the time consumed.

This is a strong argument that the use of presence-based social tools — not just IM — will decrease the costs inherent in interruptive communication, and increase the overall benefits from connectedness.

[via Vicki; original research here.]