TASK: ESSAY

   Do smartphones increase or decrease our productivity?

Can you picture the world without smartphones? The way of life in today's society has changed due to the introduction of these devices. People go into panic mode if he or she were to leave the house without a smartphone. It’s also impossible to imagine a nowadays workplace without them. Without a doubt, the indiscriminate use of smartphones negatively impacts the workplace. Constant social networking, notifications and chats definitely reduce our concentration. 

               

First of all,  everyone has notifications on his or her smartphone. It’s very annoying because it always takes you away from the activity you’re doing right now. A person cannot concentrate properly because a sweet melody attracts his or her attention once in a while. Then a person should start his work one more time, go a little back because of the distraction. Therefore, due to smartphone a worker does his work several times or just run in circles.

Secondly, nowadays we have an opportunity to stay in touch with our relatives and friends 24/7. However, it distracts us very much. We usually think that it's necessary to give an immediate answer to all the messages and comments we receive. And again, we lose concentration because of it. We switch from out task to communication and start wasting time to the detriment of work.  

Also, most companies have chats in different messengers. Managers usually want to get an answer right away. Then, a worker find it more important to respond rather than to continue performing a task. Furthermore, people started communicating face to face seldom. These chats even exacerbate the situation. Colleagues use smartphone to talk though there are only 10 metres between them. In this way, we’ll forget how to say hello in some years. The thing is that close relationship in a company often increases productivity. So, work chats are very convenient, but nevertheless, they distract us from our tasks and limits offline communicating with our colleagues.

Another big problem, that is connected with smartphones in a workplace is social networking. Modern society is used to live in an infinite stream of information. Some people feel information detox if they don’t check social media once an hour. Using social media on a smartphone makes us obsessed with what everyone else is doing at the expense of the actual task in front of us.

However, there are some advantages to utilizing smartphones during our workday. They provide the ability for employees and clients to communicate and contact one another quickly and efficiently. Often it’s necessary to clarify some details with a customer, postpone the delivery of an order or suggest additional services. We can text, call or make an appointment in a few seconds. Before smartphones were introduced, contacting with customers and clients was not an easy issue.

To sum up, there are more distracting than useful points in using smartphones in the workplace all the time. I suppose that a company should provide certain policies and procedures that can control the usage of smartphones and other similar devices in the workplace.

Sources:

1) Allana Akhtar, Business Insider Apr 22, 2019 from https://cutt.ly/De5CsLI

2) Kelly FitzSimons, Carla Caruso and Paul Malia, Corporate Wellness from https://cutt.ly/ze5Cs6O