Flow, the holistic sensation people experience when they act with total involvement, is a known driver for desired work outcomes like task performance. However, the increasing ubiquity of IT at work can disrupt employees’ flow. Thus, the impact of IT-mediated interruptions on flow warrants more attention in research and practice. We conducted a NeuroIS laboratory experiment focusing on a typical office work task—an invoice matching task (i.e., matching customer payments to invoices). We manipulated interruption frequency (low, high) and content relevance (irrelevant, relevant) to study the impact of interruptions on self-reported flow, its dimensions, and high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV; calculated from electrocardiography recordings) as a proxy for parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activation. We found that content relevance moderated the relationship between interruption frequency and self-reported flow and that these results vary along flow dimensions. Content relevance also moderated the relationship between interruption frequency and PNS activation. Furthermore, self-reported flow was positively associated with both perceived and objective task performance, while PNS activation was not related to either performance measure. Lastly, we found no relationship between PNS activation (measured by HF-HRV) and self-reported flow, contributing to an important debate in the NeuroIS literature on whether physiological evidence constitutes an alternative or a complement to self-reports. Overall, our findings indicate that frequent interruptions are not harmful per se. Rather, considering content relevance is critical for a more comprehensive understanding of the effects on self-reported flow, its dimensions, and the underlying physiology.

中文翻译：

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是什么扰乱了办公室工作的流程？IT 引发的中断的频率和相关性的影响

心流是人们在全身心投入行动时所体验到的整体感觉，是任务绩效等预期工作成果的已知驱动因素。然而，IT 在工作中的日益普及可能会扰乱员工的流动。因此，IT 介导的中断对流程的影响值得研究和实践更多关注。我们进行了 NeuroIS 实验室实验，重点关注典型的办公室工作任务——发票匹配任务（即将客户付款与发票进行匹配）。我们操纵中断频率（低、高）和内容相关性（不相关、相关）来研究中断对自我报告血流、其维度和高频心率变异性（HF-HRV；根据心电图记录计算）的影响，如下所示副交感神经系统 (PNS) 激活的代理。我们发现内容相关性调节了中断频率和自我报告流量之间的关系，并且这些结果随着流量维度的不同而变化。内容相关性也调节了中断频率和三七总皂苷激活之间的关系。此外，自我报告的心流与感知和客观任务绩效均呈正相关，而三七总皂甙激活与任何绩效指标均无关。最后，我们发现 PNS 激活（通过 HF-HRV 测量）和自我报告流量之间没有关系，这引发了 NeuroIS 文献中关于生理证据是否构成自我报告的替代或补充的重要争论。总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，频繁的打扰本身并无害处。相反，考虑内容相关性对于更全面地理解对自我报告心流、其维度和潜在生理学的影响至关重要。