The Heavy Toll of ‘Always On’ Technology

Emails, instant messages, and texts — and the expectation that they’ll be responded to immediately — are driving workers to distraction.

Larry D. Rosen, interviewed by Frieda Klotz

SPRING 2017

How quickly should employees respond to emails? In most workplaces the answer is “right away.” But scientific research is starting to suggest that managers need to recognize the effect that being “always on” has on employee stress and overall efficiency.

More than a decade after the smartphone’s introduction, researchers have been tracking and analyzing its impact — and that of its addictive technological relatives, email and social media — on our brains. In their book The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech ...