Email and the Internet are the most important digital tools for American workers, according to a new Pew Research Center report, but the third most important is a nearly 140-year-old technology: the landline telephone.
Cell phones and smartphones came in fourth on the list of tools U.S. workers said they considered very important at work, and social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn trailed in fifth place, with only four percent considering them crucial for doing their jobs.
Most workers don t think the Internet has hurt their productivity, according to the September survey, and more than half say it has made them more productive. Just seven percent said email, Internet and cell phones have slowed their productivity.
But there is an increase in American workers who say their employers have rules about what they can say or post online. Forty-six percent now say their employers have rules about online presentation, more than double the number that had such rules when Pew Research first began asking in 2006.
