Playing Candy Crush can make you more productive at Work

Getting caught in the office with Candy Crush on your phone may not be such a bad thing after all

With more than half the world gripped on this game, some of them, notable celebrities, Candy Crush has taken the world by a storm. Candy Crush is an app where you line up three or more matching candies, complete tasks and win points. Sounds simple, right? Wrong! With endless levels, all of them different, with different tasks, it is very engaging. Bright colors and peppy sounds also help in keeping us glued. The satisfaction of winning makes you want to play more and so does the frustration of losing. People have even come up with cheat codes to gain extra lives and other perks.

All this makes the game sound like a nuisance, disrupting a person’s routine and work rate. However, recent research has found out, that taking small micro-breaks during work hours, playing a game on your smartphone or chatting on social media, make workers more productive and are happier.

What does the research say?

In his latest research, Sooyeol Kim, a doctoral student in psychological sciences, found that letting employees take smartphone micro-breaks may be a benefit, rather than a disruption for businesses. Micro-breaks are nonworking-related behaviors during working hours. Smartphone micro-breaks are similar to other micro-breaks throughout the workday: chatting with coworkers, walking around the hallway or getting a cup of coffee. Such breaks are important because they can help employees cope with the demands of the workplace.

Through a study of 72 full-time workers from various industries, Kim discovered that employees only spend an average of 22 minutes out of an eight-hour workday playing on their smartphones. He also found that employees who take smartphone breaks throughout the day are happier at the end of the workday.

In a press release sent to Kansas State University, Kim says that "A smartphone micro-break can be beneficial for both the employee and the organization," Kim said. "For example, if I would play a game for an hour during my working hours, it would definitely hurt my work performance. But if I take short breaks of one or two minutes throughout the day, it could provide me with refreshment to do my job."

To study smartphone usage, Kim and collaborators developed an application that the 72 study participants installed on their smartphones. The app privately and securely measured the employees' smartphone usage during work hours. The app also divided the employees' smartphone usage into categories such as entertainment, which included games such as "Angry Birds" or "Candy Crush," or social media, which included Facebook and Twitter.

At the end of each workday, the participants recorded their perceived well-being. "By interacting with friends or family members through a smartphone or by playing a short game, we found that employees can recover from some of their stress to refresh their minds and take a break," Kim said. Taking a break throughout the workday is important because it is difficult — and nearly impossible — for an employee to concentrate for eight straight hours a day without a break, Kim said.

The smartphone research is part of Kim's overall research that focuses on workplace micro-breaks. Kim presented the research at the 29th annual Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference in May.