Study Finds Instant Messaging Helps Productivity

MojoKid writes "Researchers at Ohio State University and the University of California, Irvine conducted a telephone study by randomly surveying individuals employed full-time who use computers in an office environment at least five hours per week. They netted 912 respondents, of which 29.8 percent claimed to use IM in the workplace 'to keep connected with coworkers and clients.' Neither occupation, education, gender, nor age seem to have an impact on whether an individual is an IM user or not. The study theorizes that using IM enables individuals to 'flag their availability.' Doing so can limit when IM interruptions occur. Even if an IM interruption comes when it is not necessarily convenient to the recipient, it is 'often socially acceptable' to ignore an incoming message or respond with a terse reply stating that the recipient is too busy at the moment to properly respond." Also another study recently found that water is wet, and a third study found that most studies waste money.

Comments

Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[eldavojohn]

Also another study recently found that water is wet, and a third study found that most studies waste money. Well, just yesterday you ran a story speculating that technologies like instant messaging make us stupid.

So while you may dismiss this as the painfully obvious, at least I'll have something to shut down the baseless claims that a lot of good useful tools today "make us stupid." It's still possible for something to make us both more productive and stupid but at least there's some evidence supporting instant messaging in the workplace.

Waste of money because the sample size was too small? Maybe. Blatantly obvious? Not even close. I personally know several people at my company that still view it as a waste of time instead of a useful tool. It's sad that so many great software tools get bad reputations because there are fringe cases of abuse.

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[jeiler]

It's sad that so many great software tools get bad reputations because there are fringe cases of abuse.

Get me percentages of business use vs. abuse before you start claiming these are "fringe cases." Claims like yours make for nice rhetorical arguments, but don't add any actual substance to the discussion.

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[wattrlz]

Productivity and stupidity are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Plenty of moderately successful individuals are in the position they are now because they lack the excess brainpower to waste on ethics, logic, and other considerations that might hinder their productivity. eg: I'm sure many of us could churn out more code if we weren't smart enough to get bored.

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[fictionpuss]

It's entirely possible to reach zero productivity by just gossiping on the telephone too. Yes there is the potential for some productivity loss to non-work chatter - but "hello" and "goodbye" are two common social extravagances which are taken for granted as a cost of productively using the telephone. I wonder if future generations will view the equivalency easier than those who grew up without IM? I was highly skeptical of IM in a work environment, but I recently contributed to an OSS project which is conducted almost 100% over IM and I was converted. So I'd recommend that skeptics actually try IM with other serious-minded developers.

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[Martin Blank]

I've used it in in-house support and coordination until management blocked the server domain.

The reason that it's often blocked -- and why it's officially blocked where I work -- is because of regulatory concerns over communications that have to be monitored. I've proposed a couple of solutions ranging from Microsoft LCS to Facetime's IM proxy/monitor to allow the environment to get the benefits of IM while covering the lawyers' concerns over risk. I've considered Jabber, but I have enough to do without being the only one available to support an IM server (even if it is relatively hands-off).

However, money is tight (we're a local government in California), and the chances of this happening are slim.

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[fictionpuss]

There's a very thin line between anecdotal evidence and obviousness. Statistics don't play a part in that when they confirm what practitioners already know from their experience in the field.

It sounds like the problem you are describing is not one with your knowledge, but your personal frustration with your bosses who don't trust you at your word that employing technology X,Y, or Z will reap benefits. Bosses who will continue to waste your time until statistics and studies are conducted which will likely happen after we're already swimming in the sea of obviousness.

You need new bosses. Projecting your frustration upon the OP is misleading.

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[ifrag]

Sometimes hello isn't just a social extravagance.

http://www.esmerel.com/circle/wordlore/hello.html

I don't think there's any argument for goodbye being a waste either. What are you going to do, just sit there with the receiver on your ear and timeout instead of knowing when to hang up?

Re:Not So Obvious to Many in Corporate America

[Visual Echo]

Use Klingon phone protocol. Just bellow "SPEAK!"

Doesn't follow.

[SatanicPuppy]

The only result of this study is the knowledge that a percentage of the people who use IM believe it to be "productive". It has no actual proof that the activity of IM actually increases productivity in a measurable way.

I've dealt with a lot of people who think IM makes them productive, and I tend to disagree.

Re:Doesn't follow.

[poopdeville]

When all you need is a quick yes/no answer when you're in the middle of some work, having to drop everything and move on to another project or leave your desk to physically find the person is a real pain.

(To my QA guys:) Maybe the fact that we're not available for your "quick yes/no" questions means we're in the middle of some work.

Oops

[SimonGhent]

Sorry, thought you said "Massaging Helps Productivity".

I appear to be in the wrong room.

_Not_ a waste of money

[samael]

Just because it's obvious to you, that doesn't mean that everyone knows it.

Hell - just because it's obvious to you, that doesn't mean it's true!

Re:_Not_ a waste of money

[mh1997]

I can't find anywhere in TFA that proves productivity was actually increased.

The perception of increased productivity is not proof just as the perception of decreased productivity is not proof.

Just because you were not interrupted does not mean productivity increased - you can be chatting all day with your significant other and not consider that an interruption. Hell, I am wasting time at work posting on slashdot and not being interrupted - BECAUSE I AM NOT WORKING. Work would interrupt me.

Definitely helps me!

[antdude]

I have speech and hearing impediments (born with them), so verbal communications in person and on telephone is sometimes impossible. IMs (and e-mails) are life savers. I am not sure how I would be able to work if I didn't have these technologies (same for the Internet -- addicting too!).

No Thanks

[karvind]

I am less productive when I get interrupted every 10-15 min from a pop window. Just because you can ask, people don't spend time thinking or looking for it themselves. One can argue for and against such a thing and it depends on your work. Analogy holds that online books are good for manuals (instant search), but when I want to read a novel, nothing beats a physical paper. Similarly if you working which requires more thinking and analysis, you are better off with less interruption.

I have also limited checking emails to 3 times a day. If there is an emergency, there is a phone and you can stop by my cube.

Re:No Thanks

[Tesen]

Consider yourself fortunate that you do not have users stopping by for what is an emergency for them, but not everyone else. IM is useful when they IM me and say, "HELP! HELP! NEED REPORT! PLEASE CODE NEW ONE!! URGENT!! URGENT!!" if it isn't I get to tell them I am working on something else that is higher priority and to see my team lead if they want my priorities changed. This saves myself a face to face with them, which saves interruption to my neighbors.

Tes

Re:No Thanks

[cavtroop]

I have also limited checking emails to 3 times a day. If there is an emergency, there is a phone and you can stop by my cube. I tried this, but found that it simply increased my pop-in interruptions significantly. Someone would IM (which would get ignored, as i was set 'away'), or email, and after 10 minutes or so of no response, they plop on over and poke their head into my office. I've tried explaining to them what I am trying to get done (more work), but the culture here is one of interruptions. Drives me up the wall.

Re:No Thanks

[tzanger]

I can't stand interruptions when I'm trying to figure something out. My email client does not notify me when new email comes in, my IM is fairly unnoticeable in the corner unless I look at it, and I thankfully don't get many phone calls, and often ignore it anyway when it does ring. Now I have IRC and IM open all the time, but I can manage those kinds of interruptions much easier because I hit them when I'm at a point where a brief interruption won't bug me or disrupt my thinking. I guess the easiest analogy is reading a particularly interesting book; at a paragraph break or chapter break I can look up, talk to someone for a moment, or get a drink. However if someone came up to me and broke the "spell" I was under because I was in the middle of a paragraph, it's frustrating, and can ruin the experience.

It's quite common for me to forget to eat or put off washroom breaks for several hours when I'm in the middle of something. Someone poking their head in my office during one of those moments would probably cause me to lose all concentration for a good 15 to 30 minutes afterward, but if they were to send me an IM and I could get at it a minute (or even 15 seconds) later than they would have poked their head in, it wouldn't cause any issue at all.

There's no "might want to try that" to it -- some people just think and work differently than others. I'm not special or anything like that, but just because you have managed to organize your thoughts on paper and can handle interruptions doesn't mean that that method works particularly well for me. I generally recover from interruptions just fine, but people tend to interrupt me at points where it's not a good time to be interrupted, and that causes particular frustration, especially when it has happened for the third or fourth time that day.

IM'ing in line-of-sight

[FozE_Bear]

Hell, I even IM the guy in the next cube when he's on the phone. It seemed odd at first, but for important issues with simple yes/no answers, it can be really effective.

u r rite!

[Anonymous Coward]

So while you may dismiss this as the painfully obvious, at least I'll have something to shut down the baseless claims that a lot of good useful tools today "make us stupid." It's still possible for something to make us both more productive and stupid but at least there's some evidence supporting instant messaging in the workplace.

i no xactly wat u meen! pholks sa i'm stewpid for it an 4 posteing on sashdot! i haf to go bac and rite my web pag

Short answers drive me nuts

[failedlogic]

I like the idea of instant messaging but I prefer e-mail to IM. Reasons? Overuse of IM lingo, short answers to complicated questions and the non-business tone of the exchange.

It's great for productivity

[MikeRT]

Until you work for a boss who uses it to deliver every missive, task and piece of brain barf that he wants to spew upon his or her workers. My wife works for such a boss. The man IMs her and her team so many times each day that you would think he's an IRC bot that went insane and took over their IM system!

Where email is passive, and more formal, IM allows a boss to act like he or she can just sit there and chat at you all day telling you what to do. It's perfect for micro-managers. Where they used to be expected to write out an email with tasking, send it out and then expect a reply later, they can expect results right here, right now. The result is obvious: stress. Lots and lots of stress for the employees of a micro-manager with IM.

In my opinion, IM should be discouraged in the work place. If you want to send tasking, doing it by email or something formal like that. If you need to talk to someone in the same office, for the love of God, just go to their office and do it. If you're too busy to get up from your desk to do it, you're probably too busy to take time off to chat over IM. Yes, yes, there are exceptions, but generally speaking, that's true.

Re:It's great for productivity

[cptnapalm]

E-Mail is not that great either. Where I work, there are only about 15 or so employees, but of course (this is government) there are three managers. My desk is on everyone else's way to the kitchen; this is important.

My main boss, who spend her day in her office writing e-mails, is so non-confrontational that she will e-mail my immediate boss to ask for me to do something. My immediate boss, who spends all day in her office 15 feet from me writing e-mail all day, will then e-mail me. Before I get the e-mail (its webmail, so have to actively check it), both of them will have walked past me at least 10 times.

They will inevitably complain that I don't check my e-mail often enough.

Not For Me

[BountyX]

I disagree. I have a program that I made that automatically quantifies time spent in programs and time spent on work related tasks.

Over the course of a year my reports indicate the following:

IM almost always detracts from productivty becuase IM's either interrupted or shifted my focus to a non-working task, required status changes to prevent interruptions, and is often used for procrastination. This was the finding of a one-year quantification of my working habits using IM with clients on the same list as IM with friends. Even client conversations often got off task.

If you limit your IM to short work related need-only basis with no friends on your list at work, it is more efficient than calling and the IM logging functionality makes it easy to reference work. Using IM Logging for information (on trillians search interface) was faster than email lookup and desktop search). Small gain there.

Short Answer, for the majority of users IM will detract from productivity. If the IM environment is strictly controlled with no friends and co-works only IMing on a need-information-now basis, then IM can be a great productivity enhancment for short conversations (versus the phone).

IM status as your own receptionist

[v1]

I move around a lot every day, and my availability varies depending on where I am, and who is trying to IM me. IM's from a coworker or business contact are different than say, IM's from mom or a friend. I modded my IM client to change my status depending on where I'm at, so everyone I interact with can figure out whether or not it's a good time to ask me a question or just chew the fat.

I still occasionally get inappropriate messages, but it's pretty uncommon. Usually they're from someone I don't chat with often and they haven't figured out what all my statuses mean yet.

FYI the script is a cron job that runs every five minutes, and tries to figure out what my WAN ip address is (and sometimes narrows it down by LAN address too) and updates my status, assuming it's not set to something custom already.

Also, sometimes people have something they want to tell me but don't really need to discuss. When they see I'm busy they'll just IM me a one-liner with what was on their mind, ending with an indication that they are not expecting a reply. So at least for me, IM is extremely effective and efficient communication whether I'm at work or at home. It allows me to stay available to everyone without unwelcome distraction.

I wish I could do this with my coworkers' cell phones, omg so tired of a coworker getting continuous calls from relatives/friends while we're trying to get something done, HERE is the real problem!

I do not concur.

[DaedalusHKX]

I think, if you pay heed to what is going on, that the most productive people, are usually also the stupidest.

The hardest most productive animals are usually nothing more than what we term "beasts of burden" under the direction of an intelligent being.

Cattle can work hard and produce a lot... yet the farmer is smarter than them (and often eats them when they're no longer productive), farmers are productive, but the workers in the city are 'smarter' than them, because they eat what the farmer produces but work half as much to buy what the farmer works year round to produce. Bosses are even less productive than workers, but they employ workers and milk them dry, making bosses "smarter" than employees. BANKERS are even smarter than all of them, because true bankers do not work at all, and fleece entire countries. In fact, through inflation and debt instruments, bankers produce POVERTY, therefore "negative wealth", and yet they make a killing (literally and figuratively) running entire nations into the ground, with the nationals' own consent.

Therefore, lets not pretend that what makes you smarter also makes you more productive. Harnesses may not make horses and oxen smarter, but they certainly become more productive. Being a "good" beast of burden is NOT a result of tools that make one smarter, but of tools that make one more "productive".

Reference to the original report

[edderly]

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/garrett.html

They compare IM users opinions with non-IM users on how often they get interrupted on a work task. 29% or so people use IM and it turns out they think they think they don't get interrupted as much compared to the non-IM'ers.

IM is ok, but unfortunately I also associate it with a lot of non-work related activity when I see some other people using it.

More of a survey

[jonnythan]

This is more of a survey than a study, isn't it?

I mean, they just asked people if it made them more productive. People aren't really going to have much of an idea about their productivity rates.

A "study" would be if they actually quantified and examined the effects on productivity with and without instant messaging.