May 19th, 2009
Telecommuting nightmare: Workers use mobile devices 2 to 6 hours per week in bed, survey says
More than 1 in 4 employees are so tethered to laptops and smartphones that they can’t resist taking them to bed with them before sleeping, according to a small survey released today.
According to the survey, 57 percent of people who work in bed do so between two and six hours every week, much to the chagrin of their partners. Amusingly, 8 percent of those polled admitted that they spend more time on their mobile devices during the evening than talking to their partners.
The survey, “Laptop use in bed and the security implications,” was published by data protection company Credant Technologies and polled 300 London workers in April 2009.
Credant VP Michael Callahan nailed the telecommuting trend right on the head in a statement:
“This survey confirms that there is a growing population that is no longer restricted by working hours or confined to the office building itself. People are mobile and will work anywhere – even in bed.”
Almost half of those polled, 44 percent, admitted they keep important work documents on their mobile devices — of which the majority were not adequately secured with encryption. No surprise here — data security continues to be a nagging problem for IT departments, and this is a survey done by a data protection company, after all.
One-fifth of people do not use a secure wireless network at home, according to the survey.
One interesting point in the survey that I hadn’t thought of: when staying in hotels, 47 percent of workers are happy to connect to the hotel’s wireless network without considering whether or not it’s a secure network.
Naturally, Credant wraps up the survey with the following: “Use your bedroom for what it’s designed for.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
More on attention, lifehacks and productivity on ZDNet:
- Tom Steinert-Threlkeld: Adult Attention Disorder: ‘Splittering’ communications
- Jason Perlow: Have we all become a bunch of anxious, depressed, sleep-deprived irritable stress-heads?
- Modern maladies: I have the attention span of a gnat
- Pay for Say: Social media payola?
- Dennis Howlett: Why Twitter is dangerous
- Chemical mind hacking: legit, or corporate cheating?
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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