The relative amount of time people spend in workday activities was estimated by both an observational and questionnaire method. Results from professional, technical, administrative and clerical people in a communications research and development laboratory show that 50%-80% of the workday is spent in communicating, two-thirds of that in talking. People tend to underestimate time spent talking and overestimate time spent reading and writing. Telephone and equipment use is estimated correctly on the average. People in one-man offices and laboratories spend more time talking than people in multi-man offices, but this result is confounded with supervisory level.How much time do people spend talking, reading, writing, using equipment, and performing the other activities which are part of their working day? In particular, how is a person's time divided between the devices with which he works and communicating with other people? If most of the time is spent interacting with devices, then improvement in man-machine interaction would seem the primary approach to job improvement. If the majority of time is spent in communicating with people, then improvement in person-person interaction may be a more fruitful approach to job improvement. The study described below is addressed primarily at the question about how people divide their working time between communicating with other people (talking, writing, reading) and working with equipment.
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