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Yes, we all love our BlackBerry. And most of us have admitted addiction to the device. Is that really a bad thing, though? Unless it’s taking away from our personal relationships, spending tons of time on your BlackBerry is hardly bad thing. It’s created productive environments and has allowed people to stay instantaneously connected. However, there is a line when it come to this kind of addiction. So you decide: do the current numbers mean we’re approaching that line?

We’ll start off with the general finding: one in five Americans use a BlackBerry. That is nothing if not remarkable. The crazy part is that if you stand on a street corner in Manhattan, certainly more than one in five around you will have one.

Unfortunately, the device is eating into our supposed free time. Vacation is supposed to be a time when you forget about work and spend some quality time with friends, family, or just yourself. Someone should deliver that message to the 83 percent of those surveyed who check messages while on vacation. There was no separation between checking messages just to keep the inbox from overflowing, and checking messages and responding to them immediately.

How you know you’re addicted: you check it in your place of worship. Think that’s outrageous? Twelve percent of people don’t.

We can’t get over this one: nearly 60 percent of people use their BlackBerry in bed. Something tells us that it is not, in fact, an aphrodisiac. About 40 percent said they keep their device nearby when they sleep so they can hear incoming messages. Nearly all of them respond to e-mails in the middle of the night.

After all of this, though, we find this the most troubling: 37 percent said they responded to e-mails while driving. Come on, people. That is just unfathomably dangerous. Unless you can tap out messages with one hand while not looking, we can’t advocate that. There is a time and place for everything; the BlackBerry has no place when your attention should be on the road. Excuse us for getting preachy, but we’d like to feel safe when driving.

All in all, the numbers aren’t terrible. About one in six respondents said they have come to grips with their addiction. To the others, we say: uh, are you kidding us?

[Guardian]

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