Guest editorial: More supportive or more distractive? Investigating the negative effects of technology at the customer interface

Abstract

The continuous development of technology leads to stimuli-dense consumption environments for consumers. Although the literature primarily highlighted the advantages of adopting technologies to support consumers’ decision-making process, these systems may also require too much attention and excessive effort to be considered always rewarding. Accordingly, this special issue addresses the interplay between technology-supported consumption experiences and the related distracting mechanisms triggered by this interaction in varied contexts. Specifically, the actual collection of papers in this special issue covers three main themes: (1) conceptualizing a Customer Smartphone Distraction (CSD) organizing framework, (2) drivers (including musical atmosphere, the context of the application, parasocial interaction and anthropomorphisms of virtual agents), and (3) consequences (cognitive, affective and behavioral responses, including sensory overload and discomfort).