"Taking a Break via Technology? Triggers, Nature, and Effects of ""Online"" Work Breaks".

Through our grounded theory qualitative research, we explore how employees use technology to take breaks in the workplace. To better understand the phenomenon, we first examine why employees take online breaks as opposed to traditional offline breaks. We then explore triggers and consequences of online breaks. We identify two types of online break activities: respite, associated with pleasure-seeking, and chore, associated with non-work-related duties and responsibilities. Our findings suggest that these two types are associated with different categories of triggers (individual factors such as need for recovery and work-life balance, and job-related factors such as affective events, task and skill variety, and workload), and consequences (momentary recovery, learning, and satisfaction). Our participants suggest that although respite activities are more likely to bring relief from work demands, to help them be more productive, these breaks should be taken in a self- disciplined manner. To synthesize our findings, we present a process model of online work breaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]