Turning Smartphone Addiction into Productivity

There’s a growing issue among modern-day employees, an issue that many in the industry aren’t talking about: text neck. You may have seen its victims, on the subway, in the restaurant, sitting in waiting rooms, hunched over their phones without pause, with their necks seemingly protruding at odd angles...how can we, and should we, address the problem?

All joking aside, it’s obvious that today’s workers have had a massive increase in screen time. Often this is tied to the availability of mobile productivity applications and the rise of the cloud—more and more, the smartphone-based use of business unified communications apps, email and VoIP all allow users to get work done cost-effectively while on the go.

But the unfortunate flipside to this is a growing tech addiction, with many businesses finding themselves with employees that are constantly texting, tweeting or checking email—and mixing personal activities in with the work-related ones.

“The modern smartphone is a way for people to protect themselves, allowing people something to do,” said tech evangelist Ramon Ray, in a blog for Nextiva. “But mobile devices too often take priority over the people in the room with someone, which is problem enough when it happens in social settings. In business meetings, it can be disruptive and insubordinate.”

There are a few ways to cope with the issue of a distracted workforce, starting with laying down basic parameters. As parents do with their children, setting ground rules for when screen time is acceptable (i.e., not during client meetings) is a first priority.

“As restrictive as it can be, employers need to set boundaries when it comes to tech use in the workplace,” Ray said. “An across-the-board ban against personal cell phone use in the workplace isn’t reasonable in today’s environment. But it’s perfectly reasonable to ask phones to be turned off in meetings, especially if they’re with clients.”

Beyond this simple step, another strategy is to shift device use to the more productive end of the spectrum, in order to convert workers’ disruptive habits into a more productive, collaborative effort. For instance, business VoIP applications offer a cost-effective way to maintain communications, and many include enhanced features for cross-departmental collaboration, like SMS and even video chat. If a worker is practically a cyborg, with his or her phone seemingly grafted onto a hand, it can be possible to turn this into a strength.

“A co-worker may be overloaded with work that could be shifted over to a smartphone-addicted colleague, solving two issues at once,” Ray noted.

Sometimes, there is no “fix” for tech addiction (or text neck, for that matter), and a different level of intervention is needed.

“While it may sound extreme, technology addiction is such a problem there is now a name for it: nomophobia,” Ray said. “Instead of taking your employees’ vices away, consider offering help. You don’t have to send them off to rehab or enter them in a 12-step program. Instead, bring in an expert to speak to employees about how they can break their smartphone addictions and get more done in a day.”

Edited by Alisen Downey