Computer pop-ups really do make work harder

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Washington, Dec 8 (ANI): Pop-up windows such as email alerts or warning messages as well as advertising pop-ups have a big impact on a person's efficiency and concentration when using the web, according to a new study.

The study, led by Dr Helen Hodgetts and Professor Dylan Jones at Cardiff University, showed that although the actual interruption may only last a few moments, people then lose more time when they try to resume the task that was interrupted.

The researchers examined the cost of on-screen interruptions in terms of the time taken to complete a simple seven-step computer task.

They found that even after only a five second interruption, people take longer than normal to complete the next step in the task they are working on.


The interruptions only caused a few seconds delay in resuming the simple task set in the experiments but in a more realistic work environment, where there is more information to retrieve after the interruption, the loss of concentration could have a greater impact on work performance.

"Our findings suggest that even seemingly brief and inconsequential on-screen pop-up messages might be impacting upon our efficiency, particularly given their frequency over the working day," Hodgetts said. (ANI)

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