When your bed becomes your office

Social crises come upon us like paparazzi down the alleyways of Hollywood. In what seems like a flash, we turn around, smile, and see what we have become.

So it is imperative that I warn you of a deeply concerning trend that may well be sweeping the world: the use of laptops and mobile devices in bed.

A company called Credant Technologies, which appears to specialize in something called endpoint data protection, suspected that the world was heading toward something untoward between the sheets. So it commissioned a survey to discover whether workaholia was causing melancholia.

The results will numb.

It appears that 57 percent of those who said they worked in bed (more than a quarter of those surveyed) said they whipped out their devices between 2 and 6 hours a week. Eight percent said they spent more evening time on their devices than talking with their partners.

Does she seem happy to you?

(Credit: CC Riot Jane/Flickr)

I am sure your first thought (after counting the number of hours you are mobile while prostrate) is to consider the effect this must have on these poor people's loved ones.

Do they screech and howl in frustration? Do they scour the bars, the health clubs, and the monasteries for new lovers, ones who are less inclined to connect with others while reclined? Or do they, perhaps, have makeovers that cause them to look slightly more like something designed by Apple, BlackBerry, or Dell?

While you consider the possibilities, might I attempt to ease your involuntary eyelid-twitch by describing a little of the methodology of this survey.

A mere 300 people were asked about their digital proclivities. And all 300 were employed in the City of London, where it is perhaps inevitable that workers need to use their laptops just before snoring, being a city with a proclivity for more than few afterwork pints.

However, I would be interested to hear from those whose relationships; television viewing; trashy novel reading; hygiene of the hands, feet, nose, or other bodily areas; oh, and sex lives have been affected by a deep and lasting need to be connected to work, when they should be connected to their reason for living.

People, if you don't put your Apple or BlackBerry away...your gadgets may be the only things joining you in bed.

[Kev_Orng]

In my house, Blackberries stop at the front hall, and laptops never go up the stairs. This isn't a rule, it's just the what we do. The clock radios are the only connection to the outside world in any bedrooms, and even those are tuned to weird polka or 50s pop stations, because we can't seem to wake up to music we like.

[dragonbite]

The only time the laptop comes into the bedroom is when the kids are hounding my wife who is trying to send out an email and she has to lock herself in the bedroom (and leave the kids to me) in order to think.