Mindfulness in Information Technology Use: Definitions, Distinctions, and a New Measure

Mindfulness is an important emerging topic. Individual mindfulness in IT use has not been studied systematically. Through three programmatic empirical studies, this paper develops a scale for IT mindfulness and tests its utility in the post-adoption system use context. Study 1 develops a measure of IT mindfulness and evaluates its validity and reliability. Study 2 employs a laboratory experiment to examine whether IT mindfulness can be manipulated and whether its influence is consistent across technological contexts. Study 3 places IT mindfulness in a nomological network and tests the construct’s utility for predicting more active system use (e.g., trying to innovate and deep structure usage) as well as more automatic system use (e.g., continuance intention). Our primary contribution includes the development and validation of a scale for IT mindfulness. In addition, we demonstrate that IT mindfulness (1) differs from important existing concepts such as cognitive absorption, (2) can be manipulated, (3) more closely relates to active system use than automatic system use, and (4) provides more predictive power within the IS context than general trait mindfulness.