The overconnected
Do you plan to take your laptop to the beach this December? Or do you intend to use your BlackBerry constantly to check your e-mail? Chances are that you’re one of a growing number of people who find it hard to disconnect. Does it matter?
I admit it. I’m an addict. I can’t go more than a few hours without a fix. I’m not talking about mind-altering drugs. My fix is electronic — I’m hooked on instant messaging (IM), e-mail and the Web. If I haven’t checked my inbox for a few hours, my mind turns to what important messages might be waiting there.
The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, before my eyes are even fully open, is retrieve my e-mail on my smartphone. By the time I’m bathed, dressed and ready for the drive to work, I’ve typically read a dozen news sites and blogs on the phone — who needs the morning paper, anyway?
At the office, I’m plugged into the Internet, receiving a steady flow of information via Web feeds, and communicating constantly with colleagues and friends on e-mail and IM. I also check into social networking site Facebook once or twice a day, but thankfully I’m not as compulsive about it as some people I know.
Out on the road, between meetings and press conferences, I’m posting content to the Web and, as always, checking my e-mail.
My excuse is that I make a living writing about technology, and I use the tools of the trade to disseminate information rapidly. So, I need to be hyper connected.
Toby Shapshak, editor of the country’s leading gadget magazine, Stuff, is one of the most wired people I know. He says it’s easy to let technology take over your life. “I think we are just seeing the beginning of a much wider problem with cellphone messaging, e-mail and Internet use that may be defined as obsessive, and perhaps eventually addictive, behaviour,” Shapshak says.
Trends analyst Dion Chang emphasises the importance of making time for what he calls “slow thought in a fast-moving world”. He says e-mail and the Web are eroding people’s sense of priority. “Machines already control us,” he says. “We need to learn to manage them.”
Shapshak agrees. “There will always be more work you can just quickly finish, or one more e-mail to respond to, or one more Facebook FunWall video to watch, but you need to draw a line somewhere.”
How serious is the problem? If you’re using it to keep in touch with people and to be productive, is it really an issue? Some psychologists think it is, and they have coined a term for it: Internet addiction disorder, or IAD. But psychologists haven’t been able to agree what constitutes inappropriate use of the Internet. And, besides, is it the Internet itself causing the addiction or some other affliction, such as depression or anxiety? Pathological gamblers and shoppers aren’t suffering from IAD just because they fritter away their money on the Web.
“It’s not the fault of the technology,” says Shapshak. “It’s human nature playing itself out, as it has with every evolution of new technology. The same obsessive compulsions are at play with watching TV, playing console games, or playing a few quick games of solitaire on your PC.”
Shapshak says the biggest challenge is maintaining a proper work-life balance, now that we have the ability to work anywhere and any time using 3G-connected laptops and smartphones. “A favourite motto of the flexible information worker culture is that work isn’t somewhere you go but something you do. But it shouldn’t be done at the expense of our lives, which can be lived with as much flexibility.”
So, this holiday season, I’m seriously thinking about leaving my laptop and smartphone at home. Oh, jeez, who am I kidding? The gadgets will be the first things I pack into the car!
Loading ...