Workers in the US are angering their colleagues by using their personal digital assistants (PDAs) during meetings, according to a new report.

The New York Post reports that a study by Robert Half Management Resources found that nearly 90 per cent of workers said that they have been in a meeting disrupted by people using their PDA or Blackberry.

While 31 per cent of US workers thought that was unacceptable, 46 per cent of people said that they are OK with others using them in meetings. Because of this divide, the report predicts that meetings are going to get increasingly fraught.

"It happens all the time. You have to wait until they finish, then you have to start all over again where you left off," Martin Tune, a Manhattan computer professional, explained to the paper.

"It bothers me when they deal with that thing during a meeting and they're not paying attention to what's going on.

"That's when it gets to be a problem. That's my big beef about it."

A study from 2005 suggested that continued use of Blackberry devices could cause serious long-term damage to the user's thumbs.