Presentation Type
Article
Location
Kennesaw, Georgia
Start Date
1-4-2026 10:15 AM
End Date
1-4-2026 11:30 AM
Description
This research identifies that it is important to understand how humans sustain and recover attention to their primary activity amid mobile device interruptions. In this paper, we present our key findings and insights from an user-study based measurement of attention performance of graduate students. Ten participants (graduate students) independently completed attention tasks in an office environment (with no background noise) while receiving periodic messages (distraction), with continuous data recording on a wearable electroencephalography (EEG) headset. The attention tasks were designed in line with the standard GO/NO-GO test from psychology domain. Our experimentation included three variations of the GO/NO-GO test and across three scenarios: no distraction, forced to respond to distraction, and forced NOT to respond to distraction. We quantify the attention performance through our proposed Attention Performance Score (APS) metric which is computed using behavioral (attention test accuracy and reaction time) metrics, EEG (channels signal power levels, frontal alpha symmetry) metrics, and recovery time metrics. Our quantitative results reveal that mobile distractions largely affect students' attention negatively which correlates well with the survey responses from the participants on the impact of the distractions on completion of their primary (attention) tasks.
Quantifying the Impact of Mobile Distractions on College Students' Attention Performance
Kennesaw, Georgia
This research identifies that it is important to understand how humans sustain and recover attention to their primary activity amid mobile device interruptions. In this paper, we present our key findings and insights from an user-study based measurement of attention performance of graduate students. Ten participants (graduate students) independently completed attention tasks in an office environment (with no background noise) while receiving periodic messages (distraction), with continuous data recording on a wearable electroencephalography (EEG) headset. The attention tasks were designed in line with the standard GO/NO-GO test from psychology domain. Our experimentation included three variations of the GO/NO-GO test and across three scenarios: no distraction, forced to respond to distraction, and forced NOT to respond to distraction. We quantify the attention performance through our proposed Attention Performance Score (APS) metric which is computed using behavioral (attention test accuracy and reaction time) metrics, EEG (channels signal power levels, frontal alpha symmetry) metrics, and recovery time metrics. Our quantitative results reveal that mobile distractions largely affect students' attention negatively which correlates well with the survey responses from the participants on the impact of the distractions on completion of their primary (attention) tasks.
