How mindfulness decreases cyberloafing at work: a dual-system theory perspective

Cyberloafing is a prevalent phenomenon in organisations that may cause serious problems. In previous studies, cyberloafing has been studied as planned and intentional behaviour. Interestingly, we have observed that cyberloafing frequently happens when employees use smartphones to assist with work tasks, but they may not necessarily intend to engage in this activity. We distinguish between active and passive cyberloafing and focus on studying the latter. Based on dual-systems theory, we introduce the construct of mindfulness in the exploration of the antecedences and internal mechanism of passive cyberloafing. We conducted a research survey with employees who use smartphones to assist with work tasks and collected 474 valid questionnaires to examine our research model. The results showed that dual systems are associated with cyberloafing by influencing mind-wandering, and mindfulness significantly decreased mind-wandering when using a smartphone. This study analyses cyberloafing from an innovative neuroscience perspective and contributes to the literature by proposing a new classification of cyberloafing behaviour, reveals the internal mechanism of how dual systems impact an individual’s behaviour, and introduces mindfulness as an antecedent factor of dual systems.