Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering

© The Author(s) 2019

C. Sadowski, T. Zimmermann (eds.)Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineeringhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4221-6_9

9. How Do Interruptions Affect Productivity?

Duncan P. Brumby¹ , Christian P. Janssen² and Gloria Mark³

(1)

University College London, London, England, UK

(2)

Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

(3)

University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, USA

 

Introduction

When was the last time you were interrupted at work? If you use a computer for work and if it has been more than a couple of minutes, count your blessings and be prepared for an upcoming interruption. Modern information work is punctuated by a constant stream of interruptions [16]. These interruptions can be from external events (e.g., a ...