When I bought a BlackBerry Pearl two years ago, it was almost revelatory.
“You mean I can check my email or catch up on RSS feeds while waiting at the bus station or standing in line at the grocery store?! Yes, please!”
I quickly discovered that with a BlackBerry, it’s faster to axe a bunch of unimportant emails at once than it is to open them individually, so that reduced my daily email time. The ability to look up an address or live tweet from a conference or wherever is nice, too.
Smartphones are touted as a productivity tool, but are they really? All that 24/7 accessibility has its downsides, too. First, there’s the threat of burnout (you can’t be very productive if your brain is fried) and the constant distractions. All those apps, the endless email checking, and texting can keep you from real work, not to mention that they can keep you from staying in the moment and enjoying time-off.
Do you think smartphones help or hinder productivity? For those of you who own a smartphone, which one do you use? Are you an iPhone fanatic, an Android addict, or a CrackBerry connoisseur? Let us know in the comments.