Hui-Jung Chang, Ph.D. 1996
Department of Communication
Michigan State University
Professor
Graduate Institute of Communication
Fu-Jen Catholic University
Taiwan
Social networking sites and
interruption in organizational
settings: A media uses

perspective
outline
 Introduction
 Literature Review
 Methods
 Results
 Discussion
Introduction
 The uses of new communication technology
has always been a challenge to
communication within an organization.
 “embedded, pervasive, & interconnected;
they ARE wherever we are”

interrupt one another,
or delay progress on tasks
impede
social networking sites (SNSs)
 Definition
 public or semi-public profile
 publicly display friends list
 view and traverse their list of connections
 effects on the workplace
 connecting people and building relations
across boundaries of geography and discipline
 increase the possibility of interruptions in a
person’s work
Goal of the paper
 SNSs uses
a higher level of
interruption
 “The effects of communication
technologies are determined by the way
they are used” ( Fulk et al., 1990).
Goal of the paper
Why and How SNSs are used in the
workplace?
Why-why people use SNSs?
How- for what purposes?
Literature Review
-Theories of media uses
 Media characteristics models


Social presence
Media richness
 Social influence models

jointly constructed by co-workers in the
workplace
Media characteristics models
 Social presence

Physical presence (1976)


“the degree of salience of the other person in the
interaction”
psychological involvement (2003)
 Media richness

“a medium’s capacity to process equivocal
and uncertain information”

instant feedback, multiple cues, natural language,
convey emotion
 Ftf > telephone > email> letter
 high social presence, rich + equivocal & uncertain
tasks
Media characteristics models and
SNSs
 Ftf > IM> email
 Ftf> SNS>email
 SNSs are high in social presence and media
richness
 organizational members consider richer
media such as SNSs better than traditional
media to obtain assimilation-related
information (Waldeck, Seibold &
Flanagin,2009) .
Theories of media uses
-The social influence model
“the social context,…, can affect beliefs
about the nature of jobs and work,
about what attitudes are appropriate...”
 mostly by the attitudes, statements and
behaviors of co-workers (including
supervisors)

The social influence model and SNSs
 workers are expected to be logged on
IM whenever they are physically present
at the firm (Quan-Hasse, Cothrel &
Wellman, 2005) .
 social influence accounts for electronic
multitasking behavior in organizational
meetings (Stephens & Davis, 2009)
How SNS are used-6 purposes
 Caring
 the personal satisfaction of connecting socially
at work
 Climbing
 the benefit of promoting and connecting
strategically for career advancement
 Campaigning
 gather support for their projects
from Dimicco et al. (2008)
How SNS are used-6 purposes
 organization of work
 preparing and announcing meetings, checking
availability
 activities of knowledge work
 information sharing, problem solving,
document transfers
 Socializing
 conversations not related to work
from Cho et al. (2005)
Literature Review
-Interruption and SNS uses
 “a synchronous interaction which is not
initiated by the recipient, is unscheduled,
and results in the recipient discontinuing
their current activity” (O’Conail &
Frohlich’s,1995, p. 262)- intrusive
 IM is interruptive
 SNSs, (IM, message boards, videos,
games) might be a greater source of
interruption
Four types of Interruption
(Jett & George, 2003)
 Intrusive : unexpected intrusions
 Breaks
 anticipated or self-initiated time away from
performing work
 Distractions
 affect a person’s cognitive processes so that he or
she can not focus on primary work
 Discrepancies
 perceives inconsistencies between one’s
knowledge and expectations and what is happening
in the external environment
Negative consequences of SNS uses
 wasting time
 slandering co-workers or customers
 SNS addiction
 lower employee productivity
Research questions
 RQ 1. Are the three media use theories
(social presence, media richness, and social
influence) related to the level of perceived
interruptions in the workplace?
 RQ 2. Which theory of media use is most
strongly related to the level of perceived
interruption?
 RQ 3. Are different purposes for using SNSs
(organization of work, knowledge exchange,
socialization, caring, climbing, and
campaigning) associated with different levels
of interruption in the workplace?
 RQ4. Among the three media-use theories
and the six purposes, which variable is most
strongly related to the level of perceived
interruption?
Methods
 Facebook
 Via convenience and snowball sampling of
computer-using workers in Taiwan,
12/2010~2/2011.

graduate students->to their acquaintances
 an online survey
 N = 116


51.4%male
48.3% female
Measurement
 Facebook use. the Facebook intensity scale
(Ellison, Steinfield & Lampe, 2007)



241 friends
60% spent less than 1 hour per day
81.0% interact with friends and families
Measurement
 Social presence
 Copresence
 Social richness


Involvement



warm, sensitive, personal, social
self-involvement
partner-involvement
Social attraction

From Biocca et al., (2003)
Measurement
 Media richness




instant feedback
multiple cues
natural language
convey emotion
(Liu & Ku, 1997)
 Social influence


Supervisor
Co-workers
(Liu & Ku, 1997; Schmitz & Fulk, 1991)
 Interruption




Intrusion
Breaks
Distraction
Inconsistency
Results
 RQ 1
 social
(b =social
.41, ppresence,
< .001)
The
higherpresence
they rated
media
 media experienced
richness (b = .38,
p <influence
.001)
richness,
social
from
co-worker
and(b
supervisors,
the higher level of
 co-workers
= .34, p < .001)
interruption.
 supervisors (b = .43, p < .001)
 RQ 2
 supervisors (b = .35, p < .001)
The
more one is influenced by supervisor,
 perceived
partner
involvement
(b = .28, p
the
greater one
perceives
partner
< .05)
involvement,
the higher level of interruption.
Results
 RQ3
The
purposes of using FB is not related to
 None
the perceived level of interruption.
 RQ4

supervisors
(b = .35,
The
best predictor
to
p
< .001)
the
perceived level of

perceived partner
involvement
(b = .28,
interruption
is supervisor,
followed
by p
< .05) involvement, organization of work.
partner
 organization of work (b = -.20, p < .05)
Discussion
 Social influence works better
 Supervisor are a major influence
 media characteristics models
 perceived partner involvement –>elicit
personal emotions->interruption
 people use FB mainly for leisure purposes


Breaks
80% of the respondents interact with their
friends and families
 Management nightmare

FI,
interruption (r = .44, p<.001)
 permit employees to use SNSs for breaks but
regulate the amount of time

organization of work,



interruption
“invocation of script” (Sætre et al., 2007)
for routine work, the use of script that has
been stored in out mind
process automatically
Limitations
 external validity
 respondents are not representative
enough to stand for all computer-using
workers in Taiwan
 the results specific to a cultural context
Thank you!