Lost Sleep and Cyberloafing: Evidence From the Laboratory and a Daylight Saving Time Quasi-Experiment.
Wagner, David T. 1; Barnes, Christopher M. 2; Lim, Vivien K. 3; Ferris, D. Lance 4
[Article] Journal of Applied Psychology. 97(5):1068-1076, September 2012.

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The Internet is a powerful tool that has changed the way people work. However, the ubiquity of the Internet has led to a new workplace threat to productivity-cyberloafing. Building on the ego depletion model of self-regulation, we examine how lost and low-quality sleep influence employee cyberloafing behaviors and how individual differences in conscientiousness moderate these effects. We also demonstrate that the shift to Daylight Saving Time (DST) results in a dramatic increase in cyberloafing behavior at the national level. We first tested the DST-cyberloafing relation through a national quasi-experiment, then directly tested the relation between sleep and cyberloafing in a closely controlled laboratory setting. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory, practice, and future research.

(C) 2012 by the American Psychological Association