How Deep is your Work? The Day-to-Day Effects of Information and Communication Technology Use on Deep Work of Employees

Prior empirical work provides contradictory findings on the consequences of information and communication technologies (ICT) use at work, indicating both positive and negative consequences for employees. Integrating insights from the deep work framework with flow literature and cognitive load theory, we build and test a dynamic theoretical model to explain these contradictory findings. We move the research perspectives of ICT use and deep work to a dynamic perspective and investigate day-to-day changes in ICT use and deep work on the within-person level. The results of our quantitative diary study (n=387) provide evidence that technical ICT use has a positive effect on deep work whereas social ICT use has an inverted U-shaped relationship with deep work. The effects of social and technical ICT use on deep work depend on workplace telepressure, work experience, and knowledge intensity of work