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By Mark Henricks
If you’re supporting the use of smartphones by executives and managers, focus your efforts on voice calling, e-mail, texting and, increasingly, Web browsing. Don’t worry much about social networking and viewing videos -- capabilities that are of marginal interest to businesspeople during working hours.
Those are some of the findings of a survey of senior executives and managers by NFI Research. Talking remains the top workday use for a cellphone, reported by 89 percent of business leaders, followed by receiving e-mail (74 percent) and sending e-mail (70 percent).
Interestingly, the percentage of businesspeople who use their mobile phones for Web browsing at work rose from 29 percent to 41 percent since NFI conducted a similar survey a year ago. The percentage of business leaders who sent and received e-mails while working rose slightly.
The poll, conducted in July 2010 and released in August, asked respondents how they used their phones at work and during leisure time. Participants were asked to check boxes indicating whether they used their phones for talking, texting, sending e-mail, receiving e-mail, browsing, viewing video, viewing photos, getting information such as news and sports reports and using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Texting was another big use during working hours, reported by 61 percent of respondents. The least-frequently cited workday activity was watching videos (9 percent) and social networking. Among social media sites, 16 percent of participants said they use Facebook during the day, while 12 percent cited LinkedIn and 9 percent said Twitter.
Other findings included differences in the ways senior executives and managers used their mobile devices. Senior executives were more likely than their lower-level colleagues to use their phones to send and receive e-mail, as well as to browse the Web and view information such as sports and news.
Some survey responses came back with comments, including, “The smartphone is a fantastic productivity tool. It allows me to significantly function no matter where I am in the world. The fact that I use the phone for personal and work issues is a benefit to the employer because I mix work and personal time together -- thereby spending more time working than I would otherwise.”
Another participant said, “Having access to e-mail on the go helps in keeping the message queue under control. Also helpful in traveling to keep up with what's going on in the office. I can always make use of those ‘wasted minutes’ waiting in line, sitting in a waiting room, waiting for a meeting to start, etc.”
Not all business leaders were so enthusiastic. One respondent said, “I don't live 'n die by my cellphone. I use it to access weather for aviation planning, check e-mail on the road and make telephone calls.” And a surprising 6 percent -- nearly one in 16 -- indicated they didn’t use a cellphone at work at all, while 2.5 percent said they didn’t even have cellphones for personal use.
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