We've all seen the parents intent on their cell phones at their children's sporting events, manically returning work texts.

Then there are those who fire off text after text while at the family table, the employees who sleep with their smartphones by their pillows, and the vacationers who frequently check their work emails.

This, two researchers say, is "telepressure," the urge to quickly respond to emails, texts and voicemails -- regardless of whatever else is happening.

Not to be confused with workaholism or work engagement, telepressure is a psychological state coined by two Northern Illinois University psychology researchers who say this need the knee-jerk need to immediately respond to messages can have a dark side.

"Workers who indicate they feel high levels of telepressure are more likely to report burnout, a feeling of being unfocused, health-related absenteeism and diminished sleep quality," said NIU psychology professor Larissa Barber.

Barber is the lead author of a new study on workplace telepressure and its implications, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

"Over the past few decades, we've seen organizations increasingly rely on email or text messages for conducting business," Barber says. "The main benefit is that employees have lots of flexibility about when they can work, including at home.

"But this flexibility can sometimes have unintended costs," she adds. "Employees start to feel like they should be available and responsive to work requests at all times. This type of continuous connection does not allow people enough time to recover from work."

The result? Employees can feel out of control when they continually receive work emails and voicemails after hours.

"You feel you have this inescapable work," Barber said in a press release.

Giving into their responsive urges can harm the quality of work tasks, NIU psychology professor Alecia Santuzzi, the study's co-author, said in the release.

"Employees may get both overt and subtle cues from their work environment that high responsiveness is both valued and expected from good employees," Santuzzi says.

What are some solutions? Organizations can help reduce telepressure by encouraging "unplugged time," decreasing the number of messages, and returning more to face-to-face chats, the researchers said.

"Managers can also reduce telepressure by role-modeling effective communication and showing respect for work recovery time," Barber adds.

Data were analyzed from two separate web-based surveys, each with more than 300 respondents.