Employers Liable for Employee Tech Addiction?

I’m typing this while on the train, with my Treo is buzzing saying I have 40,000 email messages. My lifeline is a tethered connection to an EVDO signal on my MacBook Pro while I finish off a large project. Today is no exception from any day, including the weekends. I am NEVER without me Treo, and always with 45 minutes of my laptop. Why? It’s a job requirement and a forced addiction!

I know I am not the only one, on business lunches it is hysterical to watch the lineup of gadgets on the table, cell phones, blackberries, pagers, digital cameras, and the list goes on goes on.

However my technical pack mule, legal action may be in your future. Professor Gayle Porter of Rutgers University is set to release a follow up report about addiction to tech in the workplace, and the employer’s liability in such scenarios. The paper’s research has reportedly found that individuals’ personal lives suffer in the grip of tech addiction, which is often nurtured in the workplace. Injured workers, suggests Porter, may very well start looking to their employers for damages.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm [via]