Peer-reviewed research
The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress
Gloria Mark et al., Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), 2008
Read the originalRead on October 16, 2026
- What it is
- A controlled laboratory experiment in which people wrote a set of office tasks, including email replies, with and without scheduled interruptions. Interrupted people finished sooner but reported more stress, frustration and effort.
- How much weight it carries
- Peer-reviewed and widely cited in human-computer interaction research. A lab study with a small sample and scheduled interruptions, so it shows the stress cost of interruption rather than measuring real office days.
Facts taken from this source
- In a controlled experiment, people who were interrupted finished tasks sooner with no difference in quality, but they compensated by working faster and reported more stress, frustration, time pressure and effort.
“people compensate for interruptions by working faster, but this comes at a price: experiencing more stress, higher frustration, time pressure and effort” (Abstract)
- In the same experiment, people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort and time pressure after only 20 minutes of interrupted performance.
“After only 20 minutes of interrupted performance people reported significantly higher stress, frustration, workload, effort, and pressure” (Conclusion)