View the SlidesWatch hereOwing in large part to behaviors induced or amplified by ubiquitous technology, such as email and texting, a pernicious epidemic of distraction sweeps the globe. In a series of studies (
n=178 subjects and over 10 TB of multimodal data), we examined the role distractions play in stress generation, emotion contagion, and task performance. We focused in knowledge work and driving tasks, as the union of these two activities account for a large portion of people’s waking time in an advanced economy. The results suggest that distractions generate hyper-arousals irrespective of the nature of the task, negatively charged facial displays in knowledge tasks, and dangerous drop of performance in driving tasks. Moreover, modeling of the heretofore unknown psychophysiological mechanisms of distractions adds to the grim outlook. These conclusions raise uneasy questions about habitually distracted individuals with respect to long-term health implications due to stress, mid-term organizational effects due to emotion contagion, and short-term safety concerns due to perilous driving.
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