It's a nice day. Why not put down the smartphone and take a break? (© Getty Images/Jupiterimages/Comstock/Thinkstock)

If you are, you aren’t alone. Lance Whitney at CNET wrote about the Mobile Messaging Study commissioned by Neverfail and conducted by Osterman Research. Judging from the press release, I believe the point of the study was to show how many people use business e-mail and how important it is to protect your e-mail infrastructure. Nonetheless,  the report provides some interesting statistics:

• Do you check your business e-mail at when you aren’t at work? Of those surveyed, 95 percent did.
• The study indicated that 94 percent check work e-mail at night and 93 percent do on the weekend.
• They don’t stop on vacation, either, judging by the 79 percent who said they check e-mail on work-owned mobile devices. And 33 percent of those said they hiding from their family and friends to do it.
• Many send text messages while behind the wheel — 76 percent, in fact. That number may decline as new laws go into effect.
• Some 30 percent send e-mail while flying.
• Apparently 78 percent check their work e-mail in the bathroom.
• This next number may make you uncomfortable — 11 percent check e-mail while participating in some type of intimate activity.
• Around 30 percent check work e-mail at graduations, 20 percent at weddings and 15 percent at funerals.

Whitney quoted a statement by Osterman Research’s President, Michael Osterman, in which he attributed people’s willingness to stay connected to work to a need to create a perception of being available. In other words, they think it looks good to the boss if you’ll answer your e-mail 24/7.

But that doesn’t suggest that people are addicted to e-mail. To me, that says they’re addicted to looking good to the big cheese. Now here are some more statistics from the report Whitney included:

• Of those surveyed, 45 percent had been offered a job via e-mail and 6 percent were told they’d lost their jobs.
• Around 10 percent said they’d been proposed to, and 6 percent said their relationship ended in a message (I hope it wasn’t the same 6 percent who lost their jobs).
• Some 70 percent had a birth relayed to them in an e-mail, and 35 percent learned of a death.

I’m not sure those numbers speak to addiction either, but it’s obvious that people are dependent on it as a communication medium and are unwilling to stop, even when it might be prudent to do so.