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Sun block. Beach umbrella. Laptop.

One in five people toted laptop computers on their most recent vacation, and 80% brought along a cellphone, according to an AP-Ipsos poll released today.

The survey shows that going on vacation no longer means being out of the electronic loop. Many travelers are interrupting their unwinding time to check in at the office and, even more so, to keep up with the social buzz.

About one in five said they did some work while vacationing, and about the same number checked office messages or called in to see how things were going, the poll showed. Twice as many checked their e-mail, while half kept up with other personal messages, such as voicemail.

The electronic gear was most commonly brought along by younger people — 1 in 4 below age 40 brought laptops, compared with 15% of those 50 to 64 and even less for older people.

The credit — or culprit, depending on one's view — for this trend is in part today's array of devices that can easily keep people digitally tethered to workplaces, friends and family.

"Increasingly, especially when you're in a managerial sort of role, it's difficult to walk away from the job totally, given the communications technology we have today," said Suzanne Bianchi, who chairs the University of Maryland's sociology department and said she checks in about weekly while off.

Don Schneider of Buena Park is a good example.

"I'm the final guy, so I make sure my customers are happy," said Schneider, 43, a plumbing contractor who also runs an online business that supplies video equipment for plumbers.

Schneider says he limits his holiday check-ins to about a half-hour daily and tries to do it unobtrusively so that he won't annoy family and friends, making calls from his hotel room or car.

The AP-Ipsos poll was conducted from May 15 to 17 and included telephone interviews with 1,000 randomly chosen adults. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.