First Advisor

Jason Randall

Date of Award

Spring 6-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Psychology and University Honors

Department

Psychology

Language

English

Subjects

Stress, Performance, Technostress, Notifications, Task Relevance, Work

DOI

10.15760/honors.1860

Abstract

As digital communication becomes unavoidable at work, notifications have become one of the most common and overlooked sources of interruption. Drawing from current technostress literature, this study investigates how notifications impact acute and perceived stress as well as task speed and accuracy. In an experimental setting, employed university students (N = 35) completed a data-entry task while receiving either no notifications, task-relevant notifications or task-irrelevant notifications to examine how different types of digital interruptions influenced stress and performance. Stress was measured through a pre- and post-task survey and performance was assessed through both speed and accuracy. Although results showed significant negative associations between stress and performance overall, there were no significant differences between the conditions on these outcomes. Supplemental analyses suggest that notifications at work (i.e., outside of this lab task) were associated with longer refocus time, perceived performance decrements, reduced work quality and difficulty completing complex tasks. These findings suggest that push notifications may not impact stress immediately, or for all tasks, but may contribute to cumulative work stress and strain over time.

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/44794

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