Comment by kaffekaka
I interpret this and the article as saying that those 23 minutes are not spent trying to resume the original task, but on the interruption itself and the other intervening tasks that are worked on before returning to the original task.
If that interpretation is correct, those 23 mins are not wasted in confusion but simply spent on other things.
Do i read it correctly?
Yes you read it correctly. It's the time of the "interruption" itself. From when you stopped working on your task to when you resumed working on it.
In that time away from your task you might have answered questions, worked another small task, relaxed, chit chatted, etc.
The time to refocus on the task once resumed wasn't measured, but participants said it was "very detrimental".
> Thus, people’s attention was directed to multiple other topics before resuming work. This was reported by informants as being very detrimental
So we don't exactly know how much time it took participants to get back to a focused state on their task, we just know the time they were away from it.