Sunday, October 9, 2022.
In this ‘information age’ people can do many things online. Many meetings are virtual. There can also be a lot of distractions and people can waste valuable working time doing unnecessary things online. Where do we draw the balance? Should we ban people from using social media during working hours? For me, I am amazed by what I achieve on social media. My output at work will reduce drastically if I am banned from using the phone during working hours. How many people are like me, and what must be done to make sure that we/they don’t abuse the use of mobile phones during work hours?
Yesterday, I checked on some important statistics. I am on 119 (yes, one hundred and nineteen) WhatsApp platforms with Ms. Ethel Tekpor, Nurse in Charge of the Cervical Cancer Prevention and Training Centre (CCPTC) in Catholic Hospital, Battor. For every group of trainees that come to Battor, we create a WhatsApp platform to give them orientation even before they arrive, and to teach them… For every scientific manuscript we write (there are over 30 of them at different stages at the moment), we create a WhatsApp group to come up with the first draft…
Last week, the International Papillomavirus Conference (IPVC) 2023 extended the deadline for submission of abstracts to the April 2023 conference by a week. We were submitting one abstract but the extension made it possible for us to submit four more abstracts. I have been working overtime on my phone. If I was not allowed to use my phone during working hours, there is no way we could have submitted these additional four abstracts.
Times change. We must ensure that we get the most out of technology while remaining human.