Sleepless? Then Stop Taking Your iPhone To Bed.

Mobile workers just don’t put the phone down, according a new report from iPass, which provides Wi-Fi and 3G network access to enterprise clients for use by their employees. The company surveyed more than 3,500 people from 1,100 large corporations worldwide and asked them about their mobile device work habits. The results may not be all that surprising, if you’re a mobile worker, but they are somewhat terrifying (or maybe just really depressing).

iPass found that mobile workers have a hard time being physically separated from their smartphones, even when it’s ostensibly time to sleep. More than half at 61 percent of those surveyed keep the phone in the bedroom, and 41 percent have it within arm’s reach of where they sleep. Those figures jump to 77 and 60 percent respectively when you’re talking about the younger crowd (respondents between the ages of 22 and 34). Just over a third at 35 percent of mobile workers check their email before doing anything else when they wake up in the morning, and another 38 percent admit to checking their email at various times during the night.

Mobile workers also tend to own a surprising amount of tablets, given how relatively fresh on the scene those devices are. iPass found that 41 percent of those surveyed have one currently, and 34 percent are planning to get get one within the next six months. Tablet use in the mobile workforce is heavily dependent on what workers bring to the job themselves, as the report reveals that 73 percent own their own tablets, while only 27 percent of those who use one receive a device from their employer.

Employers will be interested to learn that mobile workers work, on average, 240 hours more per year than the workforce in general. That lends credence to the belief that employees who aren’t tied to the office put in more time on the job than their traditional counterparts.

Check out the infographic below for even more interesting (and depressing) data points from the iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

  • Mobile Q1: All Eyes on Tablets, T-Mobile and AT&T
  • A Media Tablet Forecast, 2011 – 2015
  • A Global Mobile Handset Platform Forecast, 2011 – 2015



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