Studies Reveal The Shocking Effects Of Distractions At Work

Given that the average person only manages to squeeze in about three hours of focused work each day, it’s pretty obvious that there are too many distractions in our lives. Let’s take a look at what research says on how distractions affect productivity in the workplace and what we can do to minimize the negative effects!

A survey conducted by Udemy showed many ways in which office workers benefit from reducing workplace distractions.

There is clearly a direct connection between the various distractions at work and productivity. Managing interruptions well is a vital skill if you want to have good performance and deliver high-quality results.

How do workplace distractions affect performance?

From a performance perspective, workplace distractions can divert attention, reduce productivity, impair concentration, and negatively affect memory and mental health. Additionally, distractions can lead to reduced accuracy in tasks and increased irritability among employees.

Recent reports revealed that 31% of work meetings are deemed unnecessary, making a significant negative impact on the team’s performance. Addressing and minimizing distractions is essential for enhancing productivity and fostering a healthier work environment.

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Common effects of distractions at work

It’s obvious that frequent distractions at work lead to bad productivity and poor results. But how exactly does it happen, and what are the most noticeable negative effects of workplace interruptions? Does it all add up and gets even worse over time? Let’s find out!

Effects of distraction on attention

Distraction’s main goal, by definition, is to pull your attention from whatever you are doing and put it into something completely different. That’s a skill that social media are extremely good at: they compete for your attention against your work and often win cause they offer more pleasurable experiences.

Recent studies found the human attention span to be extremely low, and this value only shrinks over the years. It takes more brainpower than ever before to keep yourself in a focused state, and the least you can do for everyday productivity is try to minimize external distractions.

A study by the Civil Engineering Research Center in Hong Kong shows that distractions affect brain activity, especially in places where people need to pay close attention, like construction sites. By using special equipment (EEG), researchers found specific brain signals that can tell if someone is focused or distracted, which can help make workplaces safer and reduce mistakes.

In most cases, the more undivided attention you dedicate to your task, the better quality results you end up with.

Impact of different distractions on productivity

Do you think work-related interruptions are less harmful to your productivity than random office gossip? This might not be the case.

Gloria Mark, a professor from the University of California, Irvine, who specializes in social media impact research, performed a study to figure out if the context of interruptions makes any difference in productivity. Turns out it doesn’t.

People who were interrupted with questions on completely different topics experienced the same impact on their productivity as those who were distracted by relevant questions. This means that all distractions are equally troublesome, whether you talk about the project or your exciting weekend plans.

Another study found that using website-blocking software in the workplace significantly improved focus and productivity for information workers, especially for those who were easily distracted by social media. This approach effectively reduced non-work-related distractions, leading to a more efficient work environment.

How do interruptions affect concentration?

Studies show that workplace interruptions can have a detrimental effect on concentration. Frequent interruptions disrupt the flow of work, making it difficult for employees to maintain focus and complete tasks efficiently.

Gloria Mark’s research indicates that after an interruption, it can take an individual up to 23 minutes to fully regain their concentration and return to the original task. As a result, these disruptions lead to decreased productivity, increased stress, and a higher likelihood of errors.

How do distractions affect the brain?

Numerous clinical trials conducted by Dr. Glenn Wilson from London University showed how badly frequent distractions influence the brain. At the time, emails were mentioned as the most harmful, slowing down and tiring the brain if not handled with discipline.

In 2023, social media’s impact is likely even worse than email’s when it comes to interruptions.

It’s hard to believe, but constantly being distracted by messages and notifications can lower your IQ twice worse than cannabis does. So much for multitasking! Turns out, being addicted to checking your messages actually makes you less smart, even if it’s work-related. Maybe consider those blocking tools now?

Effects of distraction on memory

Our brain can only actively cover so many things at once. If you just found a good solution to a problem and someone interrupts your thought, you may need to look for that solution all over again. If only you could predict the interruption and write it down!

According to this research on metacognition, work distractions, particularly noise, have a negative impact on memory, leading to reduced confidence in recalling information and impaired memory performance overall. One way to combat this is by using noise-canceling headphones. They can help block out all those annoying sounds and improve your focus, leading to better memory and performance.

Imagine that you are in the supermarket and read the next five things from your grocery list. Suddenly a stranger asks you where is the dairy aisle; you stop and politely answer and then continue walking. But where were you going? Wait, what were those five things again?..

These simple examples show how distractions affect your short-term memory, and this has a multiplied effect when you are trying to focus on important tasks in the workplace.

How distractions disrupt time management

When your plan your work, you expect certain parts of it to be done in more or less specified time frames. Whether you have strict deadlines or not, your estimates are put at risk every time your workflow gets interrupted.

Too many distractions may even force you to work overtime in order to meet the deadline. Studies prove that there is a direct correlation between overtime and the burnout effect, which implies that working overtime may be good for business but not so much for mental health. And forget about that fragile work-life balance if you are constantly worried about the workload!

Besides, setting wrong estimates and failing deadlines makes you appear unreliable as an employee or a colleague, which influences productivity and teamwork even worse in the long run.

But are distractions really that bad?

Surprisingly, Professor Mark’s study showed that people appear to work faster when constantly interrupted. She mentions that because of the increased time pressure, they develop a highly-effective work rhythm to compensate for the time lost due to distractions.

Sadly, this boost comes with a price: reports showed significantly increased stress levels after only 20 minutes of interruption. So what happens when it’s all day, every day? Nothing good.

Effects of distraction on mental health

While an occasional distraction doesn’t do you serious harm, frequent work interruptions may lead to anxiety or even depression.

The use of technology has led to the emergence of technostress, which is becoming increasingly common. One study found that the distraction caused by social media can contribute to technostress, which can then lead to Internet addiction. This suggests that as social media becomes more distracting in the workplace, the negative effects on mental health will likely increase.

And then, looming deadlines. The more time pressure you feel, the more stressed you get. After a few missed deadlines, a fear of failure starts to announce itself to you. You get even more stressed, your self-esteem drops, and you start pushing yourself to work more and feeling guilty for not meeting your own expectations all the time. Hello, burnout!

A study by LMU Center for Leadership and People Management evaluated how interruptions during work can affect performance and mental health. The researchers found that when someone is interrupted frequently during the day, they tend to feel less satisfied with their work and more emotionally drained. These findings highlight the importance of handling interruptions at work to protect mental wellbeing.

Generally, the more proven systems you have in place, the less stress you experience on a daily basis. Aim to organize your workplace in a smart way, so it puts you in a working mood and protects you from most distractions!

Distractions, among other factors, affect the accuracy

Especially while working with sensitive data, it’s critical to avoid interruptions that lead to making mistakes. Depending on your area of expertise, mistakes can either be easy to fix or lead to serious trouble. In any case, they always take a bite from your precious time to find and deal with them.

A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology shows the influence of momentary interruptions on the accuracy of work that follows. It found that brief interruptions, even as short as 2.8 seconds, double the error rates in a task requiring attention to detail, and a 4.4-second-long interruption is enough to triple the errors!

Furthermore, a study conducted by researchers from the Université de Lyon examined the impact of distractions on the accuracy of air traffic controllers and concluded that distractions led to an increase in errors and a decrease in controller performance. In high-risk environments, even small interruptions can lead to tragic results, such as air traffic accidents.

Unless your question or concern is urgent and cannot wait, it’s advisable not to interrupt someone who is working, even if it seems minor.

Frequent interruptions increase irritability

Interrupting a person’s main task with other small tasks can cause annoyance and can take them longer to finish the primary task.

In a study with 50 participants, researchers found that people made twice as many errors, took 3% to 27% more time to finish tasks, and felt 31% to 106% more annoyed when interrupted. One way to help people avoid these interruptions is to delay everything non-urgent until they finish the main task or until there is a natural break.

Who wouldn’t get frustrated when the workflow is constantly interrupted? You just took all the steps to avoid procrastination, turned on all the apps to finally focus, and jumped on the first task – when suddenly someone comes by to ask you a “quick question.”

You help a person cause you’re nice and all, and ten minutes later, someone else comes in. Your phone buzzes with an invite from a friend, and you respond only to see an incoming request for a quick phone call from your business partner. It’s lunchtime already, and you go eat, come back a bit worried about your productivity for the day, dive back into that first task… and see that first colleague again who just wants a tiny little clarification.

Mark’s study also indicated the noticeable growth of employee frustration from being interrupted, regardless of the context change.

How to reduce workplace distractions

It’s important to use different strategies for different types of distractions.

From hiding your phone from your eyesight to managing meetings more efficiently, there are multiple things you can do as soon as you recognize your main distraction factors and their detrimental effects on your work productivity.

Additionally, you might enjoy this fun video by Nir Eyal, the author of Indistractable. It shows how internal triggers in your brain make you distract yourself even when there are no obvious interruptions.

Final thoughts on effects of distraction in the workplace

To wrap things up, distractions in the workplace can really throw us off our game. They mess with our focus, make us less accurate, and even hurt our memory and lower our IQ.

The key takeaway here is that minimizing distractions is super important for boosting productivity and creating a better work environment for everyone. Let’s keep an eye on those annoying distractions and make sure we are managing the work time efficiently!

On a final note, here are 100 inspirational quotes about distractions I hand-picked that should inspire you to stay focused and stick to your goals!