You love your BlackBerry, right? I know I do. But let me get something straight. It’s not cool to be “addicted” to your BlackBerry, just like it’s not cool to be addicted to drugs. We can enthusiastically use our BlackBerry devices, seeking out ways it can help us better do our work. We can geek out about the latest hardware and software developments. That’s all fine and good. Geeks happen everywhere. It’s when we cannot put down the ‘Berry that it becomes a problem.
That’s a subject covered in today’s Business Journal of Milwaukee. It includes a survey which shows that many people favor banning BlackBerry devices from meetings.
“For some reason, it has become socially acceptable for someone to pull out a BlackBerry and start playing with it when someone else is talking to them,” said [Jason] Kayzar, president of MC2 Inc., of Milwaukee. “It’s become OK to stop paying attention to someone when they are talking. It’s ridiculous. We really need some social rules about when it is acceptable to use them.”
I’m not quite sure instituting rules is the solution, though I might be in the minority. A survey of 600 readers showed that 48 percent want a ban on BlackBerry devices in meetings. Half of those want the PDAs to be checked right at the door. The remainder want no rules.
“There is no good reason to be interrupted by a BlackBerry message that contributes nothing to the purpose or goals of any meeting,” said another.
“Absolutely, they should be banned,” said still another unequivocally. “Messages can be returned during meeting breaks or after it’s over. Constant checking of these devices is rude and often disruptive.”
Once again, that would be all fine and good if the meeting was mission critical. However, as many of you in the workforce know, meetings are often bland and uninformative. They’re not helping you get your work done any better, while your BlackBerry does just that. So why should you have to sit through a non-critical meeting while other, more important tasks are waiting for action?
It seems we’re blaming the device a lot, when it might be a matter of the user. This isn’t to single out any particular BB addicts. But it always seems we, as a society, seek to exculpate humans and place the blame on technology. For an example check out this Wall Street Journal blog about kids drowning. If someone’s kid drowned while he or she was checking a BlackBerry, what would be the story: Kid drowns because of negligent parent, or kid drowns because BlackBerry is addictive?
I think it would be the latter, though I’m not happy to admit it.
