Multitasking: the Uncertain Impact of Technology on Knowledge Workers and Managers

Multitasking: the Uncertain Impact of Technology on
Knowledge Workers and Managers
Frank Bannister and Dan Remenyi
Trinity College, Dublin
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Abstract: While the productivity paradox has now been officially pronounced dead, the argument and the evidence for this assertion are both at a macroeconomic level. What has been less closely examined is the microeconomic impact of recent developments in ICT on the productivity of office and knowledge workers. There is an assumption, readily seen in many advertisements for mobile technology, that multi-tasking, WiFi connected laptops, Blackberrys, smart phones and so on are good for business and make people more effective and productive. This may be true some of the time and there is some (albeit limited) research which supports claims that these technologies increase productivity. However there are also emerging concerns that, in certain environments, these technologies may actually reduce productivity in both the short and the long term. This paper examines this problem and research to date and proposes a framework for further investigation of this phenomenon.
Keywords: multitasking, multicommunication, productivity, effectiveness, efficiency, ICT evaluation.
1. Introduction: Implicit assumptions
1.1 A multitasking world
In October 2007 a video entitled “A Vision of Today’s Students” was posted on Youtube1. The video includes a series of views of students in a contemporary lecture theatre. As the camera turns to each student in turn, he or she holds up a card or a laptop showing a personal message such as “I spend three and a half hours a day on-line” or “I will read 8 books this year”. One such card simply says “I am a Multi-tasker”.
In another video in the same vein, a black and white photograph of an old fashioned classroom from early in the last century is shown. The accompanying text argues that the type of learning depicted was designed for people who

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