Should Someone With a Finger on the Button Have Thumbs on the Blackberry?

In "Will the Blackberry Sink the Presidency?" Newsweek offers a grim assessment of possible impacts of the device on the Obama administration in an article that cites several studies about interruption and divided attention. The story also mentions the research of my UC Irvine Gloria Mark that found average workers only work eleven minutes at a time on tasks without being interrupted, while those in technology fields only clock three minutes of total attention at a time. In addition to claiming Obama could be harmed by interruptions and distractions in his presidential duties, the article is also making a not-so-subtle argument about dependency, since it is sprinkled with words like "addiction" and "habit." In contrast, some might argue that this kind of multitasking connectivity might be a boon, since Obama is stepping into a White House that was formerly associated with terms like "bubble" and "echo chamber."