Less Is Not Always More: The Impact of Social Media Block Intensity and Immediacy on Work Time
[FULL ABSTRACT READ IN FULL AT SOURCE via the Crossref item record, which deposits it entire. FULL TEXT NOT READ, so no design detail, coefficient, table or quotation beyond the abstract may be attributed to this paper] Chen, Z., & Chan, J. (2026). 'Less Is Not Always More: The Impact of Social Media Block Intensity and Immediacy on Work Time.' Information Systems Research, published online 8 April 2026. doi:10.1287/isre.2023.0493. First author Zenan Chen, Naveen Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, confirmed at api.crossref.org with ORCID and sequence 'first'; Jason Chan second, University of Minnesota. Zero citations at the time of checking. THE STRONGEST DESIGN FOUND ANYWHERE IN THIS FILE AND IT IS BRAND NEW: a four-week randomised field experiment with 217 United States participants, comparing blocker designs on degree of control, partial against complete, and on immediacy, gradual against immediate. ABSTRACT, VERBATIM IN THE RELEVANT PART: 'Many current blocking policies are designed under the assumption that greater restriction will always produce better outcomes. However, our four-week randomized field experiment with 217 U.S. participants challenges this assumption. ... The results show that complete blocking can backfire, reducing time spent working, whereas partial blocking increases it. In addition, gradually introducing restrictions proved more effective than imposing them immediately ... Assuming a typical eight-hour workday, complete blocking corresponds to an estimated loss of about 20.3 productive workdays per year, whereas partial blocking is associated with a gain of roughly 6.2 productive workdays annually. Partial blocking also increased the duration of uninterrupted work sessions, indicating improved sustained focus.' READ THE OUTCOME MEASURE CAREFULLY, BECAUSE IT IS THE WHOLE POINT: the dependent variable is WORK TIME, which the abstract itself calls 'time spent working' and converts into 'productive workdays'. IT IS NOT OUTPUT AND IT IS NOT QUALITY. Even the best randomised field experiment on protecting attention measures how long people sat at the work, and its gloss on the uninterrupted-session finding, 'indicating improved sustained focus', is a statement about the session rather than about the product. THEIR OWN POLICY CONCLUSION RUNS AGAINST THE TRADE'S ADVICE, VERBATIM: 'rather than adopting all-or-nothing bans, organizations, app developers, and policymakers should implement calibrated, adaptive, and phased controls that reduce distractions without triggering behavioral backlash.'
[FULL ABSTRACT READ IN FULL AT SOURCE via the Crossref item record, which deposits it entire. FULL TEXT NOT READ, so no design detail, coefficient, table or quotation beyond the abstract may be attributed to this paper] Chen, Z., & Chan, J. (2026). 'Less Is Not Always More: The Impact of Social Media Block Intensity and Immediacy on Work Time.' Information Systems Research, published online 8 April 2026. doi:10.1287/isre.2023.0493. First author Zenan Chen, Naveen Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas, confirmed at api.crossref.org with ORCID and sequence 'first'; Jason Chan second, University of Minnesota. Zero citations at the time of checking. THE STRONGEST DESIGN FOUND ANYWHERE IN THIS FILE AND IT IS BRAND NEW: a four-week randomised field experiment with 217 United States participants, comparing blocker designs on degree of control, partial against complete, and on immediacy, gradual against immediate. ABSTRACT, VERBATIM IN THE RELEVANT PART: 'Many current blocking policies are designed under the assumption that greater restriction will always produce better outcomes. However, our four-week randomized field experiment with 217 U.S. participants challenges this assumption. ... The results show that complete blocking can backfire, reducing time spent working, whereas partial blocking increases it. In addition, gradually introducing restrictions proved more effective than imposing them immediately ... Assuming a typical eight-hour workday, complete blocking corresponds to an estimated loss of about 20.3 productive workdays per year, whereas partial blocking is associated with a gain of roughly 6.2 productive workdays annually. Partial blocking also increased the duration of uninterrupted work sessions, indicating improved sustained focus.' READ THE OUTCOME MEASURE CAREFULLY, BECAUSE IT IS THE WHOLE POINT: the dependent variable is WORK TIME, which the abstract itself calls 'time spent working' and converts into 'productive workdays'. IT IS NOT OUTPUT AND IT IS NOT QUALITY. Even the best randomised field experiment on protecting attention measures how long people sat at the work, and its gloss on the uninterrupted-session finding, 'indicating improved sustained focus', is a statement about the session rather than about the product. THEIR OWN POLICY CONCLUSION RUNS AGAINST THE TRADE'S ADVICE, VERBATIM: 'rather than adopting all-or-nothing bans, organizations, app developers, and policymakers should implement calibrated, adaptive, and phased controls that reduce distractions without triggering behavioral backlash.'
Written from the fULL ABSTRACT READ IN FULL AT SOURCE via the Crossref item record, which deposits it entire. FULL TEXT NOT READ, so no design detail, coefficient, table or quotation beyond the abstract may be attributed to this paper.
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Information Systems Research. doi:10.1287/isre.2023.0493