ESPOO, Finland – Multi-tasking, or doing more than one activity at a time, is a way of life for everyone these days, it seems.
Between work, family and social life, people are finding themselves busier than ever. But the results of a recent global online survey conducted by wireless handset manufacturer Nokia indicated that women are better at multitasking than men with 60% of survey respondents saying so.
From the more than 5,000 respondents, 79% consider themselves multi-taskers, with 50% describing themselves ‘productive’ and 31% ‘busy’. The majority of men and women in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Norway indicated they can do several things at once. The most relaxed were the Finnish, at 74%.
An overwhelming 80% of respondents believe that having a mobile phone enables them to achieve a positive balance between their work and social life. And, while 63% believe they would be less productive without their mobile phone, 74% say it makes them better at multitasking.
According to the survey, 62% of respondents do two or three activities while talking on their mobile phone, including Internet browsing and shopping. Seventy-five percent of women said they prepare food and 50% put on makeup while using their mobile phone.
Although the majority of respondents claimed they do more than one thing at a time while on their mobile phone, 48% indicated the call was their main focus. When asked what was the most fun activity to do while on their mobile phone, most said "being in bed," although no more specifics were given.
Multitasking while on your mobile phone can certainly lead to amusing situations, too. Forty-seven percent of respondents to the Nokia survey indicated that they have sent a romantic or controversial text message to the wrong person – and 56% of women did that.
The multitasking survey was conducted online through nokia.com between October 15 and November 1, 2007 by Illuminas and was conducted in the United Kingdom, Spain, Finland, Italy, China, Brazil, Germany, Denmark, France, USA, Sweden and Norway.
Nokia has undertaken a very comprehensive consumer survey, compiling more than 10 billion data points from 77,000 consumer interviews in 21 countries.
