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20-Somethings Think It's OK To Text and Answer Calls In Business Meetings
RichDiesal writes "In an upcoming article in Business Communication Quarterly, researchers found that more than half of 20-somethings believe it appropriate to read texts during formal business meetings, whereas only 16% of workers 40+ believe the same thing. 34% of 20-somethings believe it appropriate to answer the phone in the middle of a meeting (i.e., not excusing yourself to answer the phone — answering and talking mid-meeting!). It is unclear if this is happening because more younger workers grew up with mobile technology, or if it's because older workers have the experience to know that answering a call in the middle of a meeting is a terrible idea. So if you're a younger worker, consider leaving your phone alone in meetings to avoid annoying your coworkers. And if you're an older worker annoyed at what you believe to be rude behavior, just remember, it's not you – it's them!"
Then people can answer calls/check facebook/play minesweeper during meetings without being noticed.
Most of upper management is on their crackberry when anything remotely technical pops up in a meeting.
Maybe the young kids have just figured out what the older generations haven't, which is that meetings are often a life-draining waste of time? They could be answering their phones in passive-aggressive protest of being locked up wasting their time in a conference room. </snark>
Most 50- and 60-somethings I know think it's OK, too.
Ignoring any potential objective effects, wouldn't it make more sense to state, "if you're an older worker, remember that they aren't trying to be rude?" And then, maybe to say something, instead of judging silently?
Basically the assumptions that the "correct" standard of behavior belongs solely to a certain group, and that others should be expected to be a priori aware of others opinions absent communication, are critically flawed.
.: Semper Absurda
Today, you usually know who's calling before you answer. It may be appropriate to take a call if it's more important than the meeting. If you're in sales, a call from a major customer is probably more important than a meeting. If you're responsible for something operational, a call from someone reporting trouble is probably more important than the meeting.
As for reading texts, if you're in a meeting and the current meeting activity doesn't involve you, it's an effective use of your time. This is more of a large-meeting thing. Large meetings are generally nonproductive anyway.
Which in many cases will look like your company is out of date. I make a point of throwing out business cards in front of sales drones who hand them to me. Send me your contact details via some more modern method or do not bother, I am not your secretary.
Young folks know that business meetings are usually not actually important. Most of the meeting is spent addressing other people's concerns or bragging about some piece of information that the presenter feels is important, but is only trivia to most of the audience. If there's anything else, like a text message, that is perceived as a better use of one's time, they're likely to pay attention to that, rather than the meeting.
Older folks would previously have just dozed off in meetings, or doodled on notebooks looking like they were paying attention. Now that older folks are likely to be the ones leading the meeting*, of course they feel slighted when their subordinates are devoting attention elsewhere.
Another contributing factor is that young folks are more often the expendable workforce. They're the ones who are getting the longer hours and heavier workloads, being taught through their short careers that handling two problems at once is a minimum. There's a good chance that text message is work-related, and not responding would be the greater offense.
* From TFA:
People with higher incomes are more judgmental about mobile phone use than people with lower incomes
...which indicates to me that the older ones are the managers. On a wider study, this assumption may be invalid, as different industries have more youth at the top, but it appears this study covered 200 employees at a beverage distributor for its initial phase, and it doesn't reveal how many were used for the second phase. Not much hope for demographic diversity.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Bottomline, don't be a fucking Nazi.
It's a meeting. You're supposedly discussing something which requires the attention and input of everyone there. If that phone call is that important then get up and go outside. You don't sit in the meeting discussing something else.
It's called common courtesy and common sense. If you consider those two items such a burden, then obviously so are you to the organization.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Did you consider that the call can actually be more important than "your meeting"?
If it's important enough to take, it's important enough to get up and leave.
If you are not confident in your leadership skills, it is natural to put a grumpy sour face when someone is audacious enough to fiddle with their phone during "your" meeting.
If I'm holding the meeting then yes, it's my fucking meeting, and if you've got more important things to do then go do them and quit wasting my time.
"It's just like the good old days when people didn't feel like they were entitled to bring their personal lives to work showed up at work to, well, you know, work.", he said, posting the comment to Slashdot in the middle of the workday.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
I work at a large 'Top Ten' company and I see this sort of thing from just about everyone who is under 60 (the older folk seem to doodle on notepads rather than play on phones). It doesn't matter if it's a manager or an intern, if there are more than a handful of people in a meeting you're going to see this. I get tired of hearing exchanges like this day in and day out:
Speaker: And what do you think about that Johnson?
Johnson: (playing on his phone) Huh? What?
Speaker: What do YOU think about this?
Johnson: (glazed look on his face) Umm... Can you repeat what you said? I didn't hear you the first time.
Meetings grind to a halt when this stuff happens. Not only is it rude to the speaker, but you waste everyone's time when they have to go through everything again. Everyone swears they can play on their phone and listen at the same time, but it doesn't work. I understand the occasional emergency call (my favorite was when we could hear the guy shouting "The babysitter is doing WHAT? Stop her before she gets out the door!". I still have no idea what that was about.) but your day to day activities (work related or otherwise) can wait until the meeting is over with. It's just common courtesy.
They are self-centered and everything is about them, and them only. Common courtesy and respect are gone in that generation..
Do that around me in the office and you are fired, or at the least off the project. Do it around me personally, don't expect to be a friend.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
As a 20 something I'm eagerly waiting for these baby boomers to just retire so we don't have to deal with thier nonsense.
While all "boomers" are over 40, many non-boomers, children of boomers in fact, are over 40.
Just a personal anecdote. I was invited to present to senior leadership at my company, and everybody in the room significantly outranked me. The previous speaker had taken a while after lunch to speak, and after I finished setting up several people were still not back from taking a break. I asked the executive running the meeting if I should go ahead and start. He told me not to, and that we'd go ahead and embarrass anybody who was late, which he basically then did (he didn't say a word, but I'm sure everybody who walked in noted the dead silence in the room). I was given my full allotment of time to present despite them being a few minutes behind on the agenda.
The message I got out of this was that the executive running the meeting valued my time, and wanted those who worked for him to do the same. Everybody was well-engaged in the brief discussion following my presentation. The meeting had none of the usual distractions.
I made a point to pass along feedback afterwards that I appreciated the way the meeting was run. My manager actually told me at our next meeting that she was asked to relay an apology from the executive for the waste of my time. It really had an impact on the importance I placed on doing a good job at work - leadership by example works.
We're getting all of these conveniences and our society doesn't have the time to instruct people (kids especially) what is and isn't appropriate behavior. It's not just this. It's people taking snapshots of party goers doing something embarrassing, sexting, phone calls in theaters, etc. I was just at the coffee shop and a woman had one of those bluetooth headsets talking away while at the counter. Now, nothing is more annoying than standing next to someone when you can't tell if they're talking to you, the cashier, herself, or some hidden phone under their hair or on the opposite side of their head.
However, society hasn't had the time to say "hey this pisses other people off so just because it makes irrelevant 5 minutes conversations convenient, wait until you're in private to use this device."
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!