Time to put the electronic leash on hold

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conundrum: Do you get up and answer it, stay seated and answer it or ignore it for now?

“I really don’t know,” said Sweat, who resists texting back if the main speaker is talking. But plenty of people hold their device under the table and figure they’re getting away with it, he said.

The incessant texting among new college graduates is driving some bosses crazy. Jamie Belinne, assistant dean of career services at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston, teaches a professional readiness course to undergraduates that includes the dos and dont’s of texting at work. One of the big no-nos is sending personal texts at work, especially when they elicit giggles or other distracting responses.

“Companies have no tolerance for it,” said Belinne, who said businesses ask her to include texting etiquette in her class. Randall Morton gets annoyed when his kids, who are 14 and 16, suddenly start texting each other at the dinner table or while they’re in the car. “We’re having a nice talk—at least I think it is—and then you know what happens,” said Morton, president of the Progressive Forum, a civic speaker organisation that sponsors six lectures each year. All of a sudden it’s a one-sided conversation because the kids are lost in their electronic messages.

But then karma struck. Morton’s son was dancing with a girl, and she started to text right in the middle of the dance floor, Morton said. “He could not believe it,” said Morton, who said he couldn’t help pointing out to his teen, “See, that’s how I felt.”

Morton hopes the experience drives home the lesson that when you’re with people, be with them. And that rule applies at home, at school and at work.