A 2005 study, funded by Hewlett-Packard, and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, discovered that "Workers distracted by e-mails and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers."
This is one of the statistics that seems to stick with my audience when I present the impact of our modern addiction to electronic multi-tasking. So fast forward four years...and throw in Blackberry messaging, Facebook news feeds and snowball requests, Tweets, and Diggs (to name just a few social networking applications).
If we were really stoned 4 years ago, where are we today? And what impact is it having on a generation of professionals that spend more time in front of their laptops than they do in front of actual people? I hear stories of job seekers emailing out a hundred copies of their resumes every week with no response. I have interviewed countless candidates who cannot maintain focus on what is being asked perhaps because they are so conditioned to being interrupted every minute via email or instant message.
I had lunch the other day with an account executive at one of the largest staffing firms in the country and he is seeing the same problems. A lot of younger candidates and employees lack the skills and experience to build relationships face to face.
There is hope...Professionals like Collins Denny of the Greater Richmond Career Network are using MeetUp to get job seekers off the internet and in person every week to help find jobs. Blackberrys are checked at the door.
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