Ding. It’s your smartphone alerting you of a new message–probably a message from the office, and you don’t want to touch that. But what if it’s something else? You can’t resist. And when you find out that it is from the office, you feel compelled to respond.

Sounds like a normal weeknight, or even weekend? Dr. Jennifer J. Deal has a cure. The senior research scientist at the Center for Creative Leadership discussed why this is a problem, both for individuals and businesses, in a Wall Street Journal column. She also wrote about potential technology antidotes, which we outline here:

The problem – For employees, it makes perfect sense. “The smartphone makes it seductively simple to answer emails immediately, at all hours,” Deal writes. “And because it’s so easy, people start to worry if they don’t respond to notes quickly all the time.”

But it’s a problem for organizations, too. Bosses exploit it, because why not? “In short, smartphones have gone a long way toward making work a race to the bottom,” she explains. “People’s lives are more tied to work than ever, employee time has been devalued because it’s no longer finite, and inefficiencies have spread uncontrollably throughout organizations.”

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