June 12, 2009 - 6:59am
According to a March poll by Yahoo! HotJobs, an online jobs board, a third of more than 5,000 respondents said they often check their e-mails during meetings. In many cases such a behavior leads to adverse effects for the business and career. Some people find emailing during the corporate meetings to be a bad addiction and sign of bad manners.
Business mangers complaint about wasted time and money as their employees are paying more attention to what is going on in their BlackBerry handsets rather than listening to the discussion of important business issues.
"It happens all the time, and it's definitely getting worse," said Jane Wesman, a public relations executive and author of "Dive Right In -- The Sharks Won't Bite."
"It's become an addiction," she said.
Other research conducted by Yahoo! HotJobs showed that about 1/5 of the respondents they had been reprimanded for showing bad manners with a wireless device. But still even those who do not favor this habit find themselves trapped in it too.
"I catch myself driving in the car with my husband. He's talking to me and I'm downloading my e-mails," said Wesman. "You can't help yourself. There's this need to know what's going on."
Meantime, scientists note that multi-tasking when a person tries to do several things at the same time is unproductive and which is worse it is adverse. A person cannot look through email messages on his/her BlackBerry and listen to the meeting topics at the same time so as not to miss important information.
"We know that if you have a person attending to different things at the same time, they're not going to retain as much information as they would if they attended to that one thing," said Nathan Bowling, an expert in workplace psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
"If you're attending to multiple things at the same time, you often times don't learn anything," he said.
Such behavior among other things may anger clients and lead to the lost job. For example, in New York state political coup, billionaire businessman Tom Golisano said he grew angry after meeting this spring with state Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith, who paid more attention to his BlackBerry than to issues at hand.
"I thought that was very rude," Golisano said. Golisano is known for hefty campaign contributions and for funding his own unsuccessful bids for governor. Irked by Smith's behavior, Golisano reportedly approached other legislators, who this week voted out the Democratic leadership and voted in the Republicans.
"One should not play with one's BlackBerry (or anything else) when billionaires who have helped elect you have traveled to your office to talk to you," Henry Stern, former head of New York City's parks department, wrote on a Yonkers Tribune blog.
Business mangers complaint about wasted time and money as their employees are paying more attention to what is going on in their BlackBerry handsets rather than listening to the discussion of important business issues.
"It happens all the time, and it's definitely getting worse," said Jane Wesman, a public relations executive and author of "Dive Right In -- The Sharks Won't Bite."
"It's become an addiction," she said.
Other research conducted by Yahoo! HotJobs showed that about 1/5 of the respondents they had been reprimanded for showing bad manners with a wireless device. But still even those who do not favor this habit find themselves trapped in it too.
"I catch myself driving in the car with my husband. He's talking to me and I'm downloading my e-mails," said Wesman. "You can't help yourself. There's this need to know what's going on."
Meantime, scientists note that multi-tasking when a person tries to do several things at the same time is unproductive and which is worse it is adverse. A person cannot look through email messages on his/her BlackBerry and listen to the meeting topics at the same time so as not to miss important information.
"We know that if you have a person attending to different things at the same time, they're not going to retain as much information as they would if they attended to that one thing," said Nathan Bowling, an expert in workplace psychology at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
"If you're attending to multiple things at the same time, you often times don't learn anything," he said.
Such behavior among other things may anger clients and lead to the lost job. For example, in New York state political coup, billionaire businessman Tom Golisano said he grew angry after meeting this spring with state Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith, who paid more attention to his BlackBerry than to issues at hand.
"I thought that was very rude," Golisano said. Golisano is known for hefty campaign contributions and for funding his own unsuccessful bids for governor. Irked by Smith's behavior, Golisano reportedly approached other legislators, who this week voted out the Democratic leadership and voted in the Republicans.
"One should not play with one's BlackBerry (or anything else) when billionaires who have helped elect you have traveled to your office to talk to you," Henry Stern, former head of New York City's parks department, wrote on a Yonkers Tribune blog.