Technology is not an excuse to multitask conversations and create an opening to play with your blackberry during real life events. It started in movies, individuals rudely leaving their cell phones on, interrupting films with their crazy high score sounding ring tones.

More and more I have realized that people rely on this technology and use it as a tool. A tool to ruin a great conversation, a mere driver used to screw up decent discussions. I doubt most individuals intentionally interrupt their settings by fumbling for their ringing cellphone or buzzing blackberry. However, when does it end?

Corporate meetings, conferences and sales discussions have all fallen victim to technogeeks toying with their gadgets. Wouldn’t take it as far as someone wearing an ipod into the conference room, but the typing away on a treo keypad is just as bad.

The last thing I personally want to do is glance across a table and witness someone responding to their text messages or emails; I have a hard enough time maintaining focus to the speaker. Technology is great but it has its burdens. Users are often so tied to their devices that they neglect to just put it down for a moment.

If you’re sitting, eating dinner or having a conversation over a cup of joe at a local diner, if your phone rings.. do you answer? Nine times out of ten, people will say yes, often because they are waiting on that call or need to talk to the individual on the other end.

Remember when we didn’t have these types of communication devices? Worst case scenario, you would be sitting with your buddy, while he wrote a letter to his mother four hundred miles away. Now its as simple as ten digits on a telephone.

I am in no way bashing technology, just the manners that people use with their technology. Goto a movie, be courteous, shut the phone off. Sitting in a conference room? Hey, you could always respond to the email when you get back to your desk or out of the meeting. Just because the option to immediately handle something is available; it doesn’t hurt to be respectful and put the response aside…

[tags]manners, technology, respect, business, conference[/tags]