Repeated IT Interruption: Habituation and Sensitization of User Responses

ABSTRACT

Information technology (IT) interruptions are IT-based events that capture users’ attention and interfere with other activities. This study focuses on repeated IT interruption and task performance. We draw on dual-process theory and suggest that users may get used to repeated IT interruption, known as habituation, or may become hypersensitive, known as sensitization. We validate the research model based on data from a laboratory experiment with 100 subjects by using a multivariate latent growth model (LGM). With subjective and objective measurement techniques, we show how users respond to repeated IT interruption with physiological arousal, psychological exhaustion, and behavioral task performance. Our results indicate that user responses follow different patterns over time, revealing time-dependent effects of arousal and exhaustion on task performance. We contribute to literature by providing evidence that repeated IT interruption results in unique habituation and sensitization user response patterns compared to a single IT interruption.

KEYWORDS:

• IT interruption
• user attention
• dual-process theory
• IS use
• longitudinal research
• latent growth modeling
• arousal
• exhaustion
• task performance
• skin conductance
• continuance state sampling
• NeuroIS

Supplemental Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Anderson et al. [4] distinguishes the construct of habituation from the construct of habit, defining IS habit as “the tendency to use an IT automatically as a result of learning in the past” [40, p. 1219] and habituation as a “response decrement that results from repeated stimulation” [65, p. 136]. Thus, the former refers to an automatic behavior, whereas the latter is non-associated learning in which responses to repeated stimulus decrease over time.

2. According to Kahneman’s [43] theory, also called dual-process theory, this non-associated learning is processed intuitively, which indicates that habituation and sensitization occurs mostly automatically and without deliberation.

3. We refer only to “incongruent interruptions,” which are not related to the user’s activity, whereas single or repeated “congruent interruption,” which contain task-related information, can have a positive effect on performance [2, 3].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christoph Weinert

Christoph Weinert ([email protected]; corresponding author) is an Assistant Professor at the University of Bamberg, Germany. His research on technology adoption, the dark side of IS usage, technostress, IT interruptions, coping, and adaptation behavior has been published in international conference proceedings on Information Systems and scholarly journals, including Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Business Economics, Information Systems Journal, and others.

Christian Maier

Christian Maier ([email protected]) has received his habilitation at the University of Bamberg, Germany. His research interests include the IS use lifecycle, especially the adoption, usage, and discontinuous usage of digital technologies in the private (e.g., bitcoin, social networking sites) and organizational (e.g., enterprise content management, human resources technologies) use contexts, viewed through various theoretical lenses, such as IS use stress, coping, and resistance. His research has been published or will appear in Information Systems Research, Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and Journal of the Association for Information Systems among others. He was awarded the Schmalenbach prize for young researchers and several other awards and prizes.

Sven Laumer

Sven Laumer is the Schöller Endowed Professor and Chair of Information Systems in the School of Business, Economics and Society at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Head of the Dr. Theo and Friedl Schöller Research Lab “Future of Work”, and Deputy Director of the Dr. Theo und Friedl Schöller Research Center for Business and Society. His research focuses on digital collaboration, digitalization challenges, and people analytics. The results of his work habe been published or will appear among others in all journals of the AIS Senior Scholars’ Basket (incl. MISQ, ISR, JMIS). He serves on editorial boards of Information Systems Journal and The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems. He has been awarded the Young Talent Award 2018 by the German Academic Association of Business Research (VHB). When he does not research and teach digital work and life, he enjoys being a soccer referee, hiking in the Alps, and spending time with friends and family.

Tim Weitzel

Tim Weitzel ([email protected]) is Full Professor and Chair of Information Systems and Services at the University of Bamberg in Germany and Director of the Centre of Human Resource Information Systems (CHRIS). His research interests focus on IT management, technostress, and the future of work. Dr. Weitzel’s research has been published in all major Information Systems journals and conferences.