Top Less Meetings?

According to a NYT article from June 21, 2009 companies have begun to issue the edict that all meetings be "top less," which means that they be without laptops, PDAs (regardless of what camp you are a part of), and other electronic devices that often distract the users from the actual task at hand- doing work.

What do you think of this out there in the World Wide Web? As an avid user (and sometimes mis-user) of my iPhone (3G s BABY!), I often find it hard to turn away when I feel that vibration, which often signals a new tweet, AIM message, text, email or --I shudder to think--phone call!! It used to be even more of a problem when I had a Blackberry- I absolutely could not let it blink red for more then a second.

Is this going to be the "norm" when I enter the working world? Will people, as the article says, place their devices on the table at a meeting in an attempt to arm themselves against boredum? I think, if this is true, giving a presentation must be quite difficult. I also think it's quite difficult to stay focused- I mean from personal experience I know my mind is generally on what's going on inside that tiny world on my phone, and really I do my best work when it's off or in another room of my house, or on silent in my bag as I sit typing this at my cubicle.

Think about it and try to limit the amount of times you check your phone today, tomorrow or maybe even for those of you brave enough, for the next month. I mean there was a time when emails went (gasp!) unanswered for hours at a time; but then again that was back in the old days when AOL used dial up and google was something I learned about in English class.