Next to Windows Solitaire, I am pretty sure the telephone is responsible for more time wasted at work than any other invention. How else can you explain the number of times we finish a conference call and make that, “well that was a total waste of my time” look?
In all fairness, meetings in general, if not executed well, have a history of wasting time. I am sure that when Ogg called his cavemen friends together to discuss how to best kill a wild beast, that there were some in the cave playing hangman on their stone tablets wondering when this meeting would end.