Overheard cell-phone conversation is more disturbing than consistent irrelevant speech, when performing office work

This study examined how work performances of 58 participants at an upper secondary school in Sweden were affected by exposure of an overheard cell-phone conversation and a traditional conversation respectively. The main hypothesis of the study was that the cell-phone conversation was likely to disturb the subjects more than the regular conversation, and that the distraction would be more noticeable when the participants performed tasks of greater complexity.The results confirmed the hypothesis that overheard cell-phone conversations disturbs people more than regular conversations. The study could not demonstrate that the distraction is greater when people perform tasks of more complex character even if the result went in that direction. The author argues that studies like this should have an important scientific value in the debate about open plan office environment, where employees are constantly exposed to other people’s conversations.