Cell phone use, etiquette, email etiquette, Research on who thinks cell phone and emailing is OK in Meeting

Are you reading this in a meeting?  76 percent of people surveyed think it is unacceptable behavior in a meeting though men are more likely to think it’s ok in a power lunch. I give specific etiquette rules in my book SNAP. Here is more of the latest research on who thinks it’s ok to text and check emails during a meeting.                                                                                                                            

Women are twice as likely as Men to be offended by Smartphone Use

October 25, 2013 • by News at Marshall

First empirical study of business etiquette and smartphones shows how mobile manners vary by gender, age and region - with important implications for hiring, career advancement and business efficiency

The world may be increasingly uncivil, and the workplace is no exception. With the rise of smartphones, you've probably even been a perpetrator of bad behavior yourself, checking text messages or taking a call during a meeting or business lunch.

But unlike rudeness among friends, discourteous behavior in the workplace can have real implications for careers, hiring and even workplace efficiency, with tension among coworkers harming productivity. A timely new study co-authored by Peter W. Cardon of the USC Marshall School of Business and colleagues at Howard University is the first to provide an empirical baseline for how attitudes towards mobile phone use actually break down across gender, age and region.

With a national sample of more than 550 full-time working professionals, the study reveals what business professionals perceive as acceptable, courteous or rude use of mobile phones in the workplace. Published today in the journal Business Communication Quarterly, the research offers a critical baseline for how attitudes toward technology may change over time and serves as a guide to navigating social expectations around polite smartphone use.

"Hiring managers often cite courtesy as among the most important soft skills they notice. By focusing on civility, young people entering the workforce may be able to set themselves apart," said Cardon, associate professor of clinical management communication at the USC Marshall School of Business Center for Management Communication.

The researchers first identified the most common grievances people had about smartphone use among their colleagues, including browsing the Internet and checking text messages. They then asked working professionals earning at least $30,000 a year to identify which of these behaviors they considered acceptable - and which ones are flat-out rude. Among their findings:

·         Three out of four people – 76 percent – said checking texts or emails was unacceptable behavior in business meetings;

·         87 percent of people said answering a call was rarely or never acceptable in business meetings;

·         Even at more informal business lunches, the majority of people thought writing a text message is rude - 66 percent said writing or sending a text message is inappropriate;

·         Men were nearly twice as likely as women to consider mobile phone use at a business lunch acceptable. More than 59 percent of men said it was okay to check text messages at a power lunch, compared to 34 percent of women who thought checking texts was appropriate.

·         Similarly, 50 percent of men said it was acceptable to answer a call at a power lunch, compared to 26 percent of women.

·         Despite the casual reputation, professionals from the West Coast were less accepting of mobile phone use in meetings than people from the East Coast;

·         Higher-income professionals had less tolerance for smartphone use in business meetings;

·         Dramatic age gap: Younger professionals were nearly three times as likely as older professionals to think tapping out a message over a business lunch is appropriate – 66 percent of people under 30 said texting or emailing was okay, compared to just 20 percent of those aged 51-65;

·         At a working lunch with five other people? Chances are, just having your phone out is offending somebody: A full 20 percent of professionals said simply having your phone out at a business lunch is rude.

·         Saying "Excuse me" to take a call didn't cut it, over 30 percent still found it to be rarely/never appropriate during informal/offsite lunch meetings.

"Not surprisingly, millennials and younger professionals were more likely to be accepting of smartphone use, but they might be doing themselves a disservice," Cardon said. "In many situations, they rely on those older than them for their career advancement."

Melvin C. Washington and Ephraim A. Okoro of Howard University were co-authors of the study.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Cell Phone Exposure May Prevent and Reverse Alzheimer's Disease

After  years of being told that cell phone use is bad for you here is some good news

I just read cell phone exposure may prevent and reverser Alzheimer’s disease

on scitech-news (one of my research junkie sites.) Here is the link and the article.

What do you think? t

http://www.scitech-news.com/2010_01_16_archive.html

Cell phone exposure may prevent and reverse alzheimer’s disease

1/16/2010 08:17:00 AM Publicado porJorge Franchín
Etiquetas:Medicine

The millions of people who spend hours every day on a cell phone may have a new excuse for yakking. A surprising new study in mice provides the first evidence that long-term exposure to electromagnetic waves associated with cell phone use may actually protect against, and even reverse, Alzheimer's disease.

The study, led by University of South Florida researchers at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC), was published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

"It surprised us to find that cell phone exposure, begun in early adulthood, protects the memory of mice otherwise destined to develop Alzheimer's symptoms," said lead author Gary Arendash, PhD, USF Research Professor at the Florida ADRC. "It was even more astonishing that the electromagnetic waves generated by cell phones actually reversed memory impairment in old Alzheimer's mice."

The researchers showed that exposing old Alzheimer's mice to electromagnetic waves generated by cell phones erased brain deposits of the harmful protein beta-amyloid, in addition to preventing the protein's build-up in younger Alzheimer's mice. The sticky brain plaques formed by the abnormal accumulation of beta amyloid are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Most treatments against Alzheimer's try to target beta-amyloid.

The highly-controlled study allowed researchers to isolate the effects of cell phone exposure on memory from other lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise. It involved 96 mice, most of which were genetically altered to develop beta-amyloid plaques and memory problems mimicking Alzheimer's disease as they aged. Some mice were non-demented, without any genetic predisposition for Alzheimer's, so researchers could test the effects of electromagnetic waves on normal memory as well.

Both the Alzheimer's and normal mice were exposed to the electromagnetic field generated by standard cell phone use for two 1-hour periods each day for seven to nine months. The mice didn't wear tiny headsets or have scientists holding cell phones up to their ears; instead, their cages were arranged around a centrally-located antenna generating the cell phone signal. Each animal was housed the same distance from the antenna and exposed to electromagnetic waves typically emitted by a cell phone pressed up against a human head.

If cell phone exposure was started when the genetically-programmed mice were young adults -- before signs of memory impairment were apparent -- their cognitive ability was protected. In fact, the Alzheimer's mice performed as well on tests measuring memory and thinking skills as aged mice without dementia. If older Alzheimer's mice already exhibiting memory problems were exposed to the electromagnetic waves, their memory impairment disappeared. Months of cell phone exposure even boosted the memories of normal mice to above-normal levels. The memory benefits of cell phone exposure took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years if cell phone-level electromagnetic exposure was provided.

Based on their promising and unexpected findings in mice, the researchers concluded that electromagnetic field exposure could be an effective, non-invasive and drug-free way to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease in humans. They are currently evaluating whether different sets of electromagnetic frequencies and strengths will produce more rapid and even greater cognitive benefits than those found in their current study.

"If we can determine the best set of electromagnetic parameters to effectively prevent beta-amyloid aggregation and remove pre-existing beta amyloid deposits from the brain, this technology could be quickly translated to human benefit against AD" said USF's Chuanhai Cao, PhD, the other major study author. "Since production and aggregation of β-amyloid occurs in traumatic brain injury, particularly in soldiers during war, the therapeutic impact of our findings may extend beyond Alzheimer's disease."

The memory test used to evaluate the effects of cell phone exposure in mice was closely designed from a sensitive test used to determine if Alzheimer's disease, or its very early signs (mild cognitive impairment), are present in humans. "Since we selected electromagnetic parameters that were identical to human cell phone use and tested mice in a task closely analogous to a human memory test, we believe our findings could have considerable relevance to humans," Arendash said.

The researchers found a slight increase in brain temperature during the two one-hour periods when mice were exposed to electromagnetic waves each day. This increase in brain temperature was seen only in the Alzheimer's mice, and only after months of exposure. The researchers suggest the increase in brain temperature helped the Alzheimer's brain to remove newly-formed beta-amyloid by causing brain cells to release it.

The researchers were particularly surprised to discover that months of cell phone exposure actually boosted the memory of non-demented (normal mice) to above-normal levels. They suspect that the main reason for this improvement involves the ability of electromagnetic exposure to increase brain activity, promoting greater blood flow and increased energy metabolism in the brain. "Our study provides evidence that long-term cell phone use is not harmful to brain," Dr. Cao said. "To the contrary, the electromagnetic waves emitted by cell phones could actually improve normal memory and be an effective therapy against memory impairment"

"It will take some time to determine the exact mechanisms involved in these beneficial memory effects," Arendash said. "One thing is clear, however - the cognitive benefits of long-term electromagnetic exposure are real, because we saw them in both protection- and treatment-based experiments involving Alzheimer's mice, as well as in normal mice."

Previous human studies of electromagnetic waves from cell phones involved only brief exposures given to normal humans. While some studies reported small improvements in attention or memory (not enough to impact daily life), others reported no memory effects from short-term exposure. The new study by Arendash, Cao, and their colleagues is the first to investigate the effects of long-term electromagnetic exposure over many months on memory function in either humans or animals. The findings indicate that "long-term" exposure to cell phone level electromagnetic waves is needed to observe enhanced memory in normal or memory-impaired mice.

The USF researchers began investigating the effects of cell phone use on Alzheimer's disease several years ago, after several observational studies in humans linked a possible increased risk of Alzheimer's with "low-frequency" electromagnetic exposure -- like the energy waves generated by power and telephone lines. However, cell phones emit "high-frequency" electromagnetic waves, which are very different because they can have beneficial effects on brain cell function, such as increasing brain cell activity, Arendash said.

There has been recent controversy about whether electromagnetic waves from cell phones cause brain cancer. Some researchers argue that the risk of glioma (40 percent of all brain tumors) doubles after 10 or more years of cell phone use. However, others argue that since the overall lifetime risk of developing a brain tumor of any type is less than 1 percent, any doubling of this risk would still be very low. Groups such as the World Health Organization, the American Cancer Society, and the National Institutes of Health, have all concluded that scientific evidence to date does not support any adverse health effects associated with the use of cell phones. Consistent with the view of these organizations, the researchers found no autopsy evidence of abnormal growth in brains of the Alzheimer's mice following many months of exposure to cell phone-level electromagnetic waves. They also found all major peripheral organs, such as the liver and lungs, to be normal.
(Photo: USF)
University of South Florida

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.