Many factors have been cited for the fall in UK productivity – from low capital investment and poor skills to rubbish bosses and low interest rates – but a senior executive at the Bank of England suggests marketers must also shoulder the blame.
Writing in an in-house blog for the Bank’s staff, senior analyst Dan Dixon argued that people were spending so much time checking their smartphones that a “crisis of attention” was behind the country’s sluggish economy.
He tracked the drop in productivity to the rise of the smartphone over the past decade and pointed to evidence of what he branded “cyber-slacking”, with office workers routinely spending hours each week checking their smartphones.
The Sunday Times quoted Dixon’s blog as stating that “studies suggest that after being interrupted, office staff need on average 25 minutes to refocus on their work”. The newspaper goes on to claim that visits to shopping websites peak between the office hours of 2pm and 6pm.
Dixon added: “Distracted moments can lead to distracted days…if you kep getting distracted by external stimuli, your mind’s more likely to wander off.”
According to a study by the Radicati Group, released in February this year, the average consumer receives nearly 50 marketing emails a day, and that does not even include SMS and social media marketing messages.
Related stories
Email still top of the pops but it needs constant retuning
Email marketing still strong despite new fall in clicks
Stressed out marketers struggling to get a decent kip
Two-thirds of marketers admit to being bored at work
Marketing bosses rank as some of the worst in the UK
