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CSCW

Multi-tasking in the Workplace

Principal Investigators: 
Gloria Mark
Project Dates: 
January 2004
For more information: 
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~gmark/Home_page/Research.html
Research Area(s): 
CSCW
Project Description: 

Over the last several years we have been studying how digital media affects people’s lives. Rather than bring people into a laboratory, I view the real world as a living laboratory--I go where people live, study, and work, to study them as they go about their normal activities. Digital media use affects people’s mood, stress, and behavior quite significantly. In particular, people experience disruptions when working with digital media due to multi-tasking and interruptions. We have studied people in two domains: information workers in the workplace and college students in their academic life. We use an array of sensors to measure behavior: stress, mood, focus, interaction, and computer and phone activity. We are exploring how IT can support information organization in a way consistent with a more natural way of organizing work, in terms of thematically connected units of work, or working spheres. 

This work was featured in the Connector Fall/Winter 2015 issue.

Publications: 
Mark, G., "Multitasking in the Digital Age", Synthesis Lectures on Human-Centered Informatics, vol. 8: Morgan & Claypool, April, 2015.
Abdullah, S., M. Czerwinski, G. Mark, and P. Johns, "Shining (Blue) Light on Creative Ability", International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2016) , Heidelberg, Germany, ACM, pp. 793-804, September, 2016.
Mark, G., Y. Wang, M. Niiya, and S. Reich, "Sleep Debt in Student Life: Online Attention Focus, Facebook, and Mood", ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), San Jose, CA, ACM, pp. 5517-5528, May 7-12, 2016.
Mark, G., S. Iqbal, M. Czerwinski, P. Johns, and A. Sano, "Email Duration, Batching and Self-interruption: Patterns of Email Use on Productivity and Stress", ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), San Jose, CA, ACM, pp. 1717-1728, May 7-12, 2016.
Mark, G., S. T. Iqbal, M. Czerwinski, P. Johns, and A. Sano, "Neurotics Can't Focus: An in situ Study of Online Multitasking in the Workplace", ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016), San Jose, CA, ACM, pp. 1739-1744, May, 2016.
Wang, Y., M. Niiya, G. Mark, S. M. Reich, and M. Warschauer, "Coming of Age (Digitally): An Ecological View of Social Media Use among College Students", 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW), Vancouver, BC, Canada, pp. 571-582, March, 2015.
Mark, G., S. Iqbal, M. Czerwinski, and P. Johns, "Focused, Aroused, but so Distractible: Temporal Perspectives on Multitasking and Communications", 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW), Vancouver, BC, Canada, pp. 903-916, March, 2015.
Mark, G., S. T. Iqbal, M. Czerwinski, and P. Johns, "Bored Mondays and Focused Afternoons: The rhythm of attention and online activity in the workplace", SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'14), Toronto, Canada, ACM, pp. 3025-3034, Apr. 26- May 1, 2014.
Mark, G., Y. Wang, and M. Niiya, "Stress and Multitasking in Everyday College Life: An empirical study of online activity", SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'14), Toronto, Canada, ACM, pp. 41-50, Apr. 26- May 1, 2014.
Mark, G., S. Iqbal, M. Czerwinski, and P. Johns, "Capturing the Mood: Facebook and face-to-face encounters in the workplace", 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '14), Vancouver, Canada, ACM, pp. 1082-1094, Mar. 14-18, 2014.
Mark, G., I. Guy, S. Kremer-Davidson, and M. Jacovi, "Most Liked, Fewest Friends: Patterns of enterprise social media use", 17th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW '14), Vancouver, Canada, ACM, pp. 393-404, Mar. 14-18, 2014.
Mark, G., S. Voida, and A. Cardello, "“A Pace Not Dictated by Electrons”: An Empirical Study of Work Without Email", Thirtieth annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’12), Austin, TX, ACM Press. Honorable mention for Best Paper., May 5-10, 2012.
Dabbish, L., G. Mark, and V. M. Gonzalez, "Why Do I Keep Interrupting Myself?: Environment, Habit and Self-Interruption", Twenty-ninth annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vancouver, BC, Canada, May 7-11, 2011.
Yuzawa, H., and G. Mark, "The japanese garden: task awareness for collaborative multitasking", Proceedings of the 16th ACM international conference on Supporting group work (GROUP '10), Sanibel Island, Florida, USA, ACM, pp. 253-262, November 7-10 , 2010.
Mark, G., D. Hausstein, and U. Kloecke, "The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed, More Stress", Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), Florence, Italy, ACM Press, pp. 107-110, April 5-10, 2008.
Su, N., and G. Mark, "Communication Chains and Multi-tasking", Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), Florence, Italy, pp. 83-92, April 5-10, 2008.
Su, N., and G. Mark, "Workplace Connectors as Facilitators for Work", 3rd International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2007), East Lansing, MI, June, 2007.
Mark, G., V. Gonzalez, and J. Harris, "No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work", ACM CHI'05, Portland, OR, pp. 321-330, April, 2005.
Gonzalez, V., and G. Mark, "Managing Currents of Work: Multi-tasking among Multiple Collaborations", 8th European Conference of Computer-supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW'03), Paris, France, Sept. 18-22, 2005.
Gonzalez, V., and G. Mark, "Constant, Constant, Multi-tasking Craziness: Managing Multiple Working Spheres", ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'04), Vienna, Austria, ACM, 2004.