You call it multitasking. Christine Pearson calls it rude.  Pearson, a business professor who lectures on the subject of incivility, is talking about texting during meetings.

“I define incivility as behavior, seemingly inconsequential to the doer, that others perceive as inconsiderate,” writes Pearson, co-author of a book about it, in the New York Times. “Electronic devices lead to more incivility because of their powerful ability to claim our attention — no matter where we are or what we’re doing. No one likes to be snubbed, of course, but the offense can take on a new edge when the winner is a machine.”

Pearson’s book is called The Cost of Bad Behavior. And just what exactly is the cost of this egregious behavior? For one thing, says Pearson, you may suffer the resentment of your colleagues who have to “pick up the slack caused by the wandering attention and diluted energies of their e-cruising colleagues.” Also, it’s a kind of insult to your fellow workers, who may feel that the unspoken message you’re communicating to them is, “You are less important to me than my cellphone/P.D.A./laptop/latest gizmo.”

Incivility can  redound to your own detriment, too.  “In my research, I’ve learned that when employees behave in an uncivil way, their colleagues may take retribution. They might withhold information — for example, by ‘forgetting’ to include the offender’s name on a final product. Or they might see to it that he or she ends up with a less desirable task next time. Or they might even refuse to work with the person again.” In other words, the ultimate cost of abusing texting privileges could be not just ostracism, but your very job.

But perhaps the most insidious effect of inappropriate texting is the dangerous self-delusion that multitasking increases your efficiency.  Not true, says Pearson, citing sociological evidence. “Neuroscientists tell us that dividing our attention between competing stimuli instead of handling tasks one at a time actually makes us less efficient,” she says.

This reinforces something we’ve said again and again about e-books: any task performed on a screen – such as reading – can be distracting and possibly even detrimental. “My own research shows that people are continually distracted when working with digital information,” says Gloria Mark, a University of California professor who studies human-computer interaction. “They switch simple activities an average of every three minutes (e.g. reading email or IM) and switch projects about every 10 and a half minutes. It’s just not possible to engage in deep thought about a topic when we’re switching so rapidly.”  (See The Medium is Screens. The Message is Distraction.)

The problem is particularly acute for young minds. Christine Pearson’s Sending a Message That You Don’t Care may be aimed at adults,  but it applies in spades to children. Another reason to curb your child’s texting habits -  as if you needed excuses.

Richard Curtis

Every Blogger owes a debt of gratitude to newspapers and magazines. This posting relies on original research and reporting performed by The New York Times.