1. Introduction
The use of social network sites (SNS) has become a mundane activity for most people. Facebook alone had more than 1.86 billion monthly active users in 2016, 1.23 billion use it daily, and almost 94% of daily active users (1.15 billion) use it through mobile devices [
1]. Given the prevalence of mobile support, people use SNS without time and space limitations, and SNS use has become rather constant.
One of the controversial issues regarding this perpetual SNS use is the relationship between SNS use and performance: is SNS use helpful or harmful to the sustainability of an individual’s performance? Many people believe that SNS use diminishes performance. In terms of learning performance, SNS use decreases it by reducing the time and energy available for learning [
2], leading some professors to ban all laptop use in the classroom to prevent SNS use during lectures [
3]. Most organizations also consider SNS use a distraction that impairs employees’ task performance. In a survey of 1400 Chief Information Officers of U.S. companies with 100 or more employees, 54% responded that their companies prohibit SNS use completely, 19% authorize it for business purposes only, 16% permit it for limited personal use, and only 10% allow it for any type of personal use [
4]. As this result shows, the majority share the view that SNS use while working diverts employees’ attention away from their tasks, and thus should be limited to work-related purposes, if allowed at all.
However, completely banning SNS use during work or limiting SNS use to only work-related purposes seems neither possible nor effective. The prevalence of mobile devices does not require employees to have access to a company-controlled network to use SNS. Most people are already chronically connected to SNS, spending 1 h and 49 min per day on average on SNS, constituting 28% of their Internet use [
5]. Moreover, in a survey of 1060 companies that have adopted corporate SNS for business purposes, 60% responded that SNS had the positive effect of improving organizational performance but only when its use was not limited to work-relevant matters and embraced all kinds of social interaction [
6].
Researchers who have focused on the social benefits rather than the harmful distractions of SNS suggest that SNS use can increase overall performance. For example, studies have found that it can encourage cooperation [
7], interaction [
8], knowledge generation and sharing [
9], strengthened relationships among members [
10], enhanced psychological well-being [
11], and increased emotional capital of an organization [
6] and thereby enhance performance.
As such research implies, the effect of SNS use on performance can be more complex than simply negative or positive. While SNS use can be a distraction that takes attention and resources away from the primary task, its social aspects can simultaneously facilitate a positive effect and result in increased performance. Therefore, understanding the relationship between SNS use and sustainable performance requires a more integrated and granulated view that can explain when and how SNS use can diminish or enhance task performance. Most research, however, is not designed to investigate the effect of SNS use on performance during the completion of a task, and is thus limited in aiding understanding of how the effect of distraction and social aspects induced by SNS use simultaneously operate on task performance.
This study, therefore, adopts distraction–conflict theory [
12,
13], which suggests a certain distraction can work positively on simple task performance while the same distraction can operate negatively on complex task performance. This theory can be useful and effective in explaining how the SNS use during the completion of work tasks can operate both negatively and positively on the sustainability of task performance. More specifically, the study tries to answer two questions: (1) Does such SNS use increase or decrease task performance? (2) What is the underlying mechanism of SNS use that either increases or decreases task performance? To answer these questions, this study uses an experimental method and analyzes responses gathered by a self-reported scale and electroencephalography (EEG) data gained from a Brain–Computer Interface (BCI) device.
3. Theoretical Background and Hypothesis: Distraction–Conflict Theory
It is generally recognized that distractions decrease creativity and performance in jobs that require concentration and creative thinking [
33,
34]. Distraction is defined as something that directs task performers’ attention away from some ongoing activity [
12,
13]. This divided attention results in attentional conflict among inputs when the distraction is very interesting or hard to ignore and performers cannot attend simultaneously to the required task and the distraction. It then leads to capacity and structural interferences, in which the number of incoming cues interferes with the capacity to handle the task and divided attention to multiple inputs interferes with cognitive processing [
35].
Not all distraction, however, is necessarily negative. Social facilitation suggests that distractions caused by the presence of others lead people to be in a heightened state of psychological arousal. This state is called drive as it has the effect of an excitatory state and has power to drive one’s behavior [
36,
37]. This drive operates to enhance dominant responses, the most quickly elicited responses to the stimulus [
36]. It suggests that when people are psychologically aroused, they tend to do what they are usually likely to do more strongly. When people are doing a simple task, such as a well-learned routine task, the dominant responses are mostly correct ones that are helpful to execute tasks; thus linked to better performance. However, when people are doing a complex task such as one that is not well-defined, the dominant responses are usually incorrect; thus the execution of dominant responses may lead to deterioration of performance [
36].
The current study argues that this type of social facilitation can be provided by SNS use. As Markus [
38] showed, the mere presence of others can elevate drive by provoking attentional conflict and can generate social facilitation just as with the specific presence of others. The mere presence of others means that the performer is aware that other people are there, but these other people do not evaluate the performers, give cues, deliver reinforcement, or lend help. Nevertheless, simply being aware of others’ presence can distract performers and enhance or impair their performance. SNS can provide a similar presence environment. It creates a feeling of social presence [
39,
40], which is defined as the extent to which a medium is perceived as sociable, warm, sensitive, personal, or intimate [
41], thus increasing psychological arousal. Even though the presence of others in SNS is virtual rather than physical and does not take place in real time, online presence can lead to a feeling of crowding, which suggests insufficient personal space or excessive social contact within one’s surrounding [
42]. Furthermore, recent studies have extended the sources of social presence from physical human beings to virtual ones induced by technology (e.g., [
43,
44,
45]). Thus, the following hypothesis is suggested:
Hypothesis 1. The psychological arousal in a group with SNS use will be higher than in a group with no SNS use.
Distraction–conflict theory also posits that stress arises during performing a task and operates differently depending on the type of task. Stress is felt when there is a “substantial imbalance between environmental demand and the response capability of the focal organism” [
46] (p. 17). When performing a simple task, stress narrows the performer’s attention on a task and creates the possible exclusion of irrelevant information [
37]. Thus, decreasing the stress level is not an appropriate tactic for increasing performance for a simple task. It is stress induced in a high-demand and high-threat situation that disrupts performance [
47]. When people are exposed to a task that is challenging and threatening, stress rises as the anticipation of failure also arises and they try to adjust to the stress physiologically, psychologically, and behaviorally [
48]. In this process, task performance is generally diminished since dealing with stress takes resources that can be psychological or physiological and should be allocated to performing tasks [
49]. Thus, people fail to sustain their performance level [
50]. People who confront a high task load tend to experience more stress and to perform less well than those assigned a low task load [
51,
52,
53]. Therefore, there has been much effort to decrease task stress when performing complex tasks.
In particular, attention-related research argues that stress increases and task performance deteriorates when people experience directed attention fatigue after performing a task for an extended period [
54]. Therefore, research suggests that attention should be moved from a task even for a short period time, and even this short break can help restore attention and reduce stress, thus repairing the impaired performance level. A break means a period of time in which work-relevant tasks are not required or expected [
55], and taking it decreases work fatigue and maintains performance level [
56]. Trougakos, Beal, Green and Weiss [
55] have also shown that respite activities such as socializing during work breaks are effective in increasing positive emotions and decreasing negative emotions. Furthermore, this effect of socializing can operate regardless of whether it provides work-relevant social support that can be helpful in performing a task. When stressful events occur, Cohen and Wills [
57] suggest, not only the specific social support given to a person regarding the event but also the existence of social integration—the feeling of being embedded in a larger social network—can have a positive effect on reducing stress and a person’s well-being. Therefore, as SNS use fundamentally involves social aspects regardless of active or passive social activities, its use can become a break and, at the same time, an effective means of gaining social integration. In other words, by moving attention away from a task and making people feel others’ presence, SNS use can be effective in decreasing stress. Since the effect of decreasing stress improves performance only for complex tasks, the following hypothesis is posited:
Hypothesis 2. For those performing complex tasks, the stress level will be lower in a group with SNS use than in a group with no SNS use.
For the performance of simple tasks, given that increased psychological arousal induced by SNS use can increase task performance. Distraction–conflict theory can elaborate how this works [
12,
13]. People perform better when the beneficial effect of elevated drive generated by distraction outweighs the disruptive effects of distraction. In the case of performing a simple task, the intensity of distraction can actually have a positive effect on task performance [
37]. The following hypothesis, therefore, is proposed:
Hypothesis 3. The performance of a simple task will be higher in a group with SNS use than in a group with no SNS use.
In the case of complex tasks, however, predicting performance following SNS use is complicated. The effect of psychological arousal increased by SNS use can deteriorate performance of complex tasks, but the effect of reduced stress can promote it. Therefore, this study hypothesizes that those two effects will offset each other, and that SNS use thus will neither increase nor decrease complex task performance overall. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
Hypothesis 4. The performance of a complex task by an SNS use group will be indifferent from that of a no SNS use group.
4. Method
An experiment was conducted. Particularly to capture stress of participants, the electroencephalography (EEG)-based BCI method was used. BCI is a non-invasive technique for recording brain signals using electrodes placed on the scalp to capture electrical activity primarily in the cerebral cortex [
58]. The BCI device offers demonstrated usability, reliability, cost effectiveness, and portability. It also involves minimal risk for participants due to its non-invasive way of monitoring their brain signals. Thus, the relative convenience of conducting studies and recruiting participants has increased the adoption of the BCI method in various areas recently (e.g., [
59,
60]). The particular BCI used for this study is Emotiv EPOC+ wireless headset (Emotiv (
https://www.emotiv.com/), San Francisco, CA, USA).
4.1. Experiment Design and Procedure
To ensure that the difference between the SNS use and no SNS use groups was not due to the mere effect of not doing a task, the non-SNS users were divided into two groups, one which took a time of not doing a task (break) but did not use SNS and one which neither used SNS nor had a break. Therefore, a 2 (task complexity: simple task vs. complex task) × 3 (the existence of distraction: SNS use vs. no SNS use (break and no break)) design was employed. Participants were randomly distributed among the resulting six conditions:
- (1)
Simple task, SNS use
- (2)
Simple task, no SNS use (break)
- (3)
Simple task, no SNS use (no break)
- (4)
Complex task, SNS use
- (5)
Complex task, no SNS use (break)
- (6)
Complex task, no SNS use (no break)
In this experimental setting, it was essential to ensure that participants did not have any distractions other than that intended for the study. Therefore, the experiment was conducted in a room in which each participant worked alone. As even the mere presence of an experimenter can be a distraction, all experiment materials, including instructions, task forms, and questionnaires, were given as computer versions. The detailed procedure was as follows. Each participant entered a waiting room and was asked to read the provided task instructions. When the participant was ready, he or she was escorted into an adjoining room and was seated in front of a computer. An experimenter then placed a BCI headset on the participant. After the experimenter confirmed that the headset was worn properly and then left the room, the participant clicked an online task, starting the experiment. When a message announcing the end of the experiment was displayed on the computer screen, the participant was asked to call out to the experimenter. The headset was then removed by the experimenter, and the participant returned to the waiting room and left.
4.2. Task Complexity and Distraction Manipulation
Earley’s [
61] scheduling task was adopted for the simple and complex tasks, as it is known to be useful in controlling task complexity with the same materials and requires problem-solving efforts. In doing this task, participants were asked to produce five unique schedules, each consisting of five non-redundant classes. Upon starting the task, an online page was displayed with five empty class slots for making a single schedule. By clicking each slot, a participant could see a list of 12 classes, each having at least 10 different sections. Each class section had information consisting of (a) course name; (b) day; and (c) time. For example, “Business Writing [Mon, Wed, Fri] 8:00–8:50 a.m.” meant that a business writing course was offered at 8:00–8:50 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and a participant could choose the class for any one of those days; “Business Writing [Mon] 9:00–10:30 a.m.” meant that the course was available at 9:00–10:30 a.m. only on Monday. When one schedule was complete, the participant clicked the “next” button to move to the next schedule.
During this task, participants in both conditions were asked to follow three scheduling rules: (a) each schedule must have five different classes scheduled on the same day; (b) class times within a single schedule must not conflict; and (c) each schedule cannot duplicate another schedule. For participants in the complex task condition, three additional rules were imposed: (a) no two marketing courses (i.e., marketing research, marketing strategy, and consumer behavior) can be scheduled within one hour of each other; (b) if a communication class is selected, the communication practice class should also be included in the schedule and vice versa; and (c) if a course with an introduction class is selected, the same course with a discussion class must also be in the schedule and vice versa.
After finishing the first three schedules, participants in the SNS use group were interrupted and asked to use their Facebook account for about three minutes. The three-minute time span for the duration of SNS use was selected for three reasons. First, the average human attention span for a freely chosen task can range from 5 to 20 min [
62]. Second, the experimental design required assigning an equal amount of minutes to the SNS use and no-SNS use and break groups and the experiment had to avoid having the participants in the latter groups becoming overly bored while instructed to refrain from doing anything for that period of time. Third, the aim of this study was to demonstrate that even a short use of SNS can affect task performance. As a result, the duration of SNS use was conservatively chosen as three minutes, which is slightly shorter than the minimum attention span.
Participants in the no-SNS use group who were assigned a break were instead asked to look at the green square displayed on the page and do nothing for about three minutes. The green square was shown for two reasons. First, the ultimate goal of the break was to release attention and looking at green can help to achieve this purpose [
63]. Second, by providing clear and specific guidance for this period, participants were prevented from engaging in other attention-requiring activities. After three minutes, they were asked to continue the scheduling and finish the tasks.
Participants in the no-SNS use group without the break condition were not interrupted and instructed to make five course schedules consecutively. All of these instructions were displayed on the computer screen as the experiment progressed.
4.3. Measurements
Three different types of measurement were used—namely, an objective measure, a self-report measure, and an EEG interpretation measure. First, as an objective measure, the clock counter on the computer calculated the time taken for a task. Second, a self-report measure was used to capture the participants’ psychological arousal. Third, stress was captured through an EEG interpretation measure provided by Emotiv EPOC+ software. The usefulness of capturing emotions and psychological state through the EPOC+ is widely accepted in the literature (e.g., [
64,
65]).
4.3.1. Task Performance
Task performance can be measured in two ways: by how accurate the result was and by how long it took. First, for accuracy, each rule violation in scheduling received a penalty score. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) result on this penalty score indicated no differences in accuracy across the six conditions—F = 0.791 (p = 0.557) for schedule 1, F = 0.972 (p = 0.436) for schedule 2, F = 0.706 (p = 0.620) for schedule 3, F = 1.562 (p = 0.172) for schedule 4, and F = 0.784 (p = 0.562) for schedule 5—suggesting that scheduling mistakes randomly occurred among participants. Therefore, participants’ task performance score was measured by the time (seconds) it took to finish the task. As the time taken for the first scheduling task may include the participants’ learning time of becoming accustomed to the online scheduling setting, the time of the first scheduling was likely to be overestimated thus disregarded. Then, the summation of the time taken for the second and third scheduling was used as the performance score before the treatment (pre-performance), and that of the fourth and fifth scheduling was used as the performance score after the treatment (post-performance).
4.3.2. Psychological Arousal
The measure of psychological arousal was adopted from studies by Bradley and Lang [
66] and Mehrabian and Russell [
67]. It consists of a set of 12 bipolar adjective pairs (relaxed-stimulated, calm-excited, sluggish-frenzied, dull-jittery, sleepy-wide awake, and unaroused-aroused) that are each rated along a seven-point scale. Participants were asked to choose the rating that best described their current status on each pair.
These questions were asked twice, first before the scheduling task to capture their initial psychological arousal status (initial-arousal), then right after SNS use for SNS use groups and right after break for no SNS use-break groups (treatment-arousal). Given that the no SNS use-no break groups did not get a break, treatment-arousal was captured only for the SNS use and no SNS use-break conditions. Then the average of the participants’ answers to the questions was used as the measure of psychological arousal.
4.3.3. Stress
Stress level was monitored by BCI throughout the experiment. The average of the participants’ stress scores for the second and third scheduling was used for pre-stress, and that of their scores for the fourth and fifth scheduling was used for post-stress for the analysis.
6. Discussion
The results of hypotheses testing and additional analysis suggest several interesting insights. First, although the psychological arousal scores of participants in the SNS use groups was significantly higher than that of those in the simple break groups, note that the initial psychological scores of both groups were higher than those following SNS use or break. A possible conjecture for this is that participants were initially aroused due to the fact that they were being subjects of an experiment in which an administrator installed a BCI headset on their heads that most of them have never worn or seen in their lives. This initial arousal seems to have been alleviated as the experiment proceeded. This does not mean, however, that the difference in treatment psychological arousal between the SNS use groups and simple break groups is the consequence of initial arousal. The result clearly suggests that SNS use made participants more psychologically aroused than did a simple break.
Although not supported, the test result for Hypothesis 2 suggests two things. First, a something that can operate as a short break, which is getting attention away from a task, in the middle of a task can be effective for decreasing stress. Second, for a complex task, this can be in any form: a simple break or SNS use. For a simple task, however, only the simple break not SNS use decreases stress level. A plausible explanation for this lies in how high the task performer’s need to release attentional resource from a task is. When performing a complex task, in which the burden of the task is substantial, the effect of releasing attentional resource from a task for moments whether by SNS use or simple break may be dominant in decreasing stress. When performing the simple task, however, the burden of the task is moderate, and thus there may not be a high need for the task performer to release attentional resource. Therefore, the effect of releasing attentional resource from the task is not dominant enough to prevent stress rising from attentional resource allocated to SNS. This is consistent with the limited resource model of behavior regulation [
68,
69]. This model suggests that people need self-control to perform tasks, and that this self-control uses mental and physical resources such as attention and concentration. The tasks that are continued without breaks or need more effort require high levels of self-control and thus cause performers’ stress [
70]. When these resources are consumed, self-control is no longer possible. To do tasks continuously, therefore, people need to replenish resources. For this replenishment to be successful, recourse consumption level should be lower than resource replenishment level and a break makes this possible by alleviating the consumption of resources required for self-control [
69]. The findings of this study imply that complex task performers need to replenish resources more, and taking time off from a task, regardless of its forms—simple break or SNS use—use fewer resources than doing tasks, thus also reducing stress level as well. The fact that only simple break reduced stress level when performing simple task can be explained similarly: a simple task does not require high levels of self-control, thus the level of resource consumption for doing simple tasks may not be much higher than the level required for using SNS. In other words, a similar amount of resources for task execution are consumed for SNS use, thus resource replenishment does not occur and meaningful stress reduction does not occur either.
For the simple task, the performance of participants in the SNS use group was better than those not subjected to SNS use. It is interesting to note that the only group of people whose post-performance was not significantly improved was the simple break group, even though it is also the only group whose post-stress level was significantly decreased. This finding confirms the theory that stress is not related to simple task performance but only to complex task performance. As distraction-conflict theory also suggests that high psychological arousal can have a positive effect on simple task performance, the significantly lower psychological arousal felt by people in the break group than that by people in the SNS use group can explain the relatively low performance of the simple break group. When performance is considered as time taken for each scheduling, the overall pattern of all three groups in
Figure 1 shows a downward slope as the task proceeds, except for the fourth scheduling. While the performance of participants in the SNS use group maintains the descending path, those in the no SNS use groups take a longer time to perform the fourth scheduling than the previous one. For the break group, this pattern might be explained by the low psychological arousal they received from the break. For the no break group, it may be a result of the fatigue they feel from the consecutive scheduling. This performance impairment occurs only at the beginning of the post-treatment scheduling, as performance starts to improve again after that. Although this fluctuation occurs only briefly, the finding indicates that only the SNS use prevented this performance fluctuation, enabling performance to be sustainable.
For the performance of the complex task, the post-performance scores of all three groups are not significantly different, as hypothesized. For participants in the SNS use group, this lack of difference might be attributed to the positive effect of decreased stress being offset by the negative effect of high psychological arousal, as the theory suggests. For the break group, however, their stress levels decreased to as low a level as that of SNS use group and their psychological arousal level was significantly lower than that of the SNS use group. This seems to be contradictory to what the theory argues because distraction-conflict theory holds that they should thus have significantly better performance given that both these effects positively affect performance. However, given that how high psychological arousal must be to impair performance is unknown, the measured psychological level for the break group can still be problematic for performing complex tasks.
7. Implications
7.1. Theoretical Implications
This study attempts to provide new understanding of how SNS use affects task performance by examining its positive and negative effects simultaneously. The analysis of these results overall suggests that use of SNS functions better than a mere break in improving performance when participants are engaged in a simple task and no differently from a mere break when doing a complex task. This suggests that, although SNS use is commonly viewed as a distraction, it can have a better or at least the same effect as a simple work break, which is known to be a performance enhancer, therefore contribute to making performance to be sustainable.
The findings of this study suggest, first, that SNS can play different roles for different people or task environments. For some people performing a task that does not demand full concentration, SNS can serve as a conduit to deliver a sense of others’ presence that is linked to increased performance. For some people who are engaged in a task that requires full concentration, SNS can be an attention-relieving break that is even socially enhanced. In this sense, this study contributes to the literature by challenging the prevalent belief that SNS use is a mere distraction and by adding new knowledge about when and how SNS use affects task performance.
Second, much of the literature concludes that SNS use has either positive or negative effects upon performance without explaining the mechanisms by which SNS use influences performance. This is partly because their methods are not designed to capture the effect of SNS use during a task, instead using retrospective means or simple comparisons of SNS users and non-SNS users. To help fill this knowledge gap, this study conducted a theoretically informed experiment and examined how psychological arousal and stress induced and mitigated by SNS use can play a role during a task.
Third, by using physiological measures to validate empirical research, this study enhances the methods used to reconcile physiological and psychological investigations. This is particularly useful when a gap exists between people’s perceptions and behaviors. For example, Computers as Social Actors theory [
71] suggests that people do not perceive computers as social actors, but rather that they react to them as they would to people in social settings. If an EEG shows that people’s brain signals during SNS use display the same pattern as that during their face-to-face interactions with physical human beings, we can understand a great deal more about the relationship between people and technology than what psychometrics alone can reveal.
Fourth, the study challenges the assumptions of the current literature that view time and energy in work settings solely as fixed resources and thus personal SNS use as inevitably a distraction that reduces those resources. However, the findings of this study suggest that SNS can reduce stress that is related to task complexity. As occupational stress can have negative effects on the physical and mental health of people within the workplace [
72], the personal use of SNS in learning and working environments, although admittedly consuming some time and energy, may ultimately serve not as a disruptive but as a productive distraction. The finding hints that seemingly wasted resources can preserve valuable resources somewhere else suggesting that the time and energy as the fixed resources in work setting should not be taken for granted.
Fifth, the findings of this study enrich the concept of social presence in distraction-conflict theory. While previous studies have limited such presence to physical presence, this study shows that the concept can be extended to online presence engendered by SNS. When combined with the Computers as Social Actors theory [
71], which suggests that people react to technology as they would to other people, the findings of this study will further advance our understanding of how digital materiality, by creating a perceptual social world, impacts our social behavior and, as a result, adjusts our ontological world.
Finally, the findings of this study shed some light on enabling performance sustainability. An individual’s sustainable performance is about not only enhancing their performance, but also avoiding a drop in performance by preventing
burnout [
50]. A break has been known to have positive effects on preventing cognitive fatigue and thus burnout [
56]. This study suggests a new role of SNS: SNS use, which is usually seen as a distractor of performance, can in some situations provide a break that leads to sustainable performance.
7.2. Practical Implications
First, for managers of organizations, the findings of this study also suggest that personal SNS use among employees does not have to be entirely avoided. Rather, in some situations, its brief usage in the middle of work tasks should be even encouraged. Even though many organizations now acknowledge the need for short work breaks, these results suggest that, in some situations, SNS use can have a better effect than mere breaks. Entirely banning SNS use in an organization may be simple and easy to execute, but doing so may result in losing valuable chances for achieving not only the sustainability of individual performance but also the sustainability of organizational performance through enabling social interactions [
73] and helping to find entrepreneur opportunities [
74].
Second, managers should consider not only task types but also workplace environments. For example, when many people are working together in an open space, the psychological arousal generated from having people physically nearby may be enough to keep a person motivated and socially connected without engaging in SNS. On the other hand, employees who are working in isolated environments might find SNS use energizing.
Third, the field study of SNS use in organizational contexts [
6] suggests that successful SNS use in an organization should not be restricted to work-related matters. This study provides a slight hint of the reason behind this finding. SNS use should not be directed to the way to increase stress, particularly when performing complex tasks. Restricting SNS use to work related matters not only decrease organizational SNS use itself but may also associate stress to organizational SNS; this study offers additional evidence that organizational SNS use should not be restricted to work-related matters.
Lastly, it is worth noting that the effect of SNS use is realized immediately, and thus workers can begin the task they engage after SNS use in an improved condition. For example, the increased psychological arousal produced by SNS use seems to prevent fatigue and enable fresh mental processing capability for simple task performers. The improved task performance by SNS use can be linked to the even better performance of the following task. Therefore, given that SNS effects can be propagated to later task performance, the positive effects of SNS use at the right moment can be magnified through time.
In conclusion, we are living in an era where our mundane activities are filled with technologies that distract our attention. If we cannot turn these off, then we should seek out their positive qualities—perhaps positive side effects of distractors—and think of using them wisely and helpfully for our life to be sustainable as it should be. Disruptive distraction can also be productive distraction, and momentary resource consumption can also be resource replenishment in the long run.
8. Limitations and Directions for Future Research
There are several limitations to this study. First, due to the inherent nature of experiment that needs to separate variables of interest from other factors and the requirement of this study to eliminate the presence of an administrator, it was possible to examine the relative differences in target variables among the experimental groups but not their complicated causal relationships and specific threshold that converts positive relationship to negative relationship or vice versa. In addition, to prevent non-treatment factors from affecting experiment results, treatments have to be given at the same moment for the same period of time across experimental conditions, without which it is not possible to conclude that the results are due to the treatment effects. For this reason, timing and duration of treatments in this experiment (SNS use and break) were fixed across conditions: at the end of the third scheduling for three minutes. If not controlled this way, there could be many alternative explanations for the result: the time taken for SNS use or break, frequency of using SNS or taking breaks, and task progress level when a performer used SNS or took a break. Although this is necessary to control an experiment and a task can be divided into as many subunits as possible, using SNS between subunits of a task is not entirely natural. Future studies may adopt the method to monitor people’s SNS-related behavior in a more natural environment in a longitudinal way. Doing so may reveal a myriad of paths in which SNS use is connected to performance.
The current study revealed that the performance of a complex task by an SNS use group is indifferent from that of a no SNS use group. The theory and results suggest that this is because the positive effect of stress reduction offset the negative effect of psychological arousal. However, other factors may intervene in the interaction between stress and psychological arousal. Future research should focus on finding those variables and investigating the mechanism of how stress and psychological arousal affect each other when performing certain types of tasks.
This study used a single form of task, a scheduling task. Although the chosen task involved many types of task characteristics, such as decision making, solution finding, and varying degree of complexity, future studies may extend this study by using multiple different tasks that are different in nature and the time required to finish. Similarly, varying SNS usage time, purposes, and activities as experiment treatments in future study can help establish a more robust understanding of SNS use and performance.
This study delves into the relationship between SNS use and performance under the assumptions of distraction-conflict theory. Future research may adopt different theories as main theories such as the limited resource model of behavior regulation [
68,
69]. Future research may also investigate other causes of positive and negative effects of SNS use on performance such as a feeling of social integration and a compulsive need for using SNS than psychological arousal and stress. BCI devices such as that used in this study can provide a good mean to measure various emotional and physiological factors that can explain how SNS use affects performance.