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onoson Rosenblum’s outstanding Outlook column of two weeks ago, “Our Children Are Begging Us to Stop,” which focused on the extremely harmful effects of cell phone use for ourselves and our children, reminded me of an article I had seen in the Economist recently.

That story focused not on how cell phones break down communication between parents and children but on how much they inhibit workplace productivity.

As an aside, I have long suspected that the modern world actually makes accomplishing tasks more difficult. Despite the convenience of e-mail, and the mini computers that many of us carry around, the distractions they create do not engender productivity, as was once promised, but actually hinder it. It’s my guess that many of us are working longer hours and yet getting less done.

The report in the Economist confirms that view. According to the magazine, “conducting tasks while receiving emails and phone calls reduces a worker’s IQ by about ten points relative to working in uninterrupted quiet. That is equivalent to losing a night’s sleep, and twice as debilitating as using marijuana.”

A drop of ten points in IQ is significant. A person who possesses an average IQ, for instance, can drop into the “below average” category with a loss of ten points, while a person with above average intelligence can drop into the normal category. I think we all know how poorly we function after a loss of one night of sleep.

Further, a study conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that while information technology initially raises productivity, in the long term, “the accumulation of balls to be juggled reduces performance and increases the incidence of error.” There seem to be people who are masters at juggling ten balls at once — for instance, the average chareidi mother. But for the rest of us mortals, keeping track of all of those balls in the air can be challenging.

Yet another good reason to keep one’s smartphone shut off and out of sight — even at work.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 739)