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In Praise of Constant Connectivity
An anonymous reader wrote to mention an opinion piece on CNet discussing the realities of living in constant contact with the world at large. The author argues that the ability to connect actually creates time for us that we wouldn't have otherwise had. From the article: "... rather than obliterate our social lives, always-on connectivity and the increased flexibility it brings will allow us to break free from the office and actually socialise more. Sure, you'll be on call at unusual hours of the day, but think about how much more efficient you'll be -- particularly if your most productive hours aren't between 9am and 5:30pm! And besides, all newfangled technology comes with an 'off' switch should you find yourself needing some down time."
No thanks, I'll have the "off" switch and a sterile office, please. I've learned from experience that when something really, absolutley needs *doing*, sitting in a comfortable chair at home, with the Web at my fingertips, is a *massive* distraction.
That is not to say I am against ubiquitous connectivity - I long for the day mobile Web access is as simple as using a cellphone. With Google, dictionary.org, Wikipedia, various product review sites etc. on hand, making decisions and finding out information while on the move will be incredibly easy - in my *free time*.
For work though, I don't see "always on" as something as positive.
My always-on connection to the internet has been a major help when I need to get to a website in a bind, and I don't have to wait 3 minutes for a modem to dial in to an ISP, and then wait for some page to slowly load. Also my cell phone has proved invaluable in situations where I would have been stuck otherwise.
But along with that, the old tale of telemarketers and charity seekers calling at dinner time is still a pain (even if you have caller ID, it still is annoying to have the phone ring at such times unecessarily).
I'm sick of having near misses with innattentive pedestrians and cyclists with headphones on and staring into their mobiles[1]. These people aren't "connected to the world at large", they are disconnected from the real world around them. At some point my bike is going to make a connection with one of them as they step into the real world road without looking.
Baz
[1] yeah, I've seen cyclists pedalling and texting at the same time.
I think--hang on, I need to get my water from the microwave--it is great--just a minute, I need to take this call--because you can get so much--dude, I just an email with a chucknorrisfacts.com link--done--hold on, my instant message is flashing--with all of this--oh shit, my palm pilot alarm just went off. Now what was I saying?
"And besides, all newfangled technology comes with an 'off' switch should you find yourself needing some down time."
20 Minutes Into The Future:
Janie Crane: "Edison... an off switch!"
Metrocop: "She'll get years for that. Off switches are illegal!"
--Max Headroom Episode 16, "Blanks"
There are both pros and cons to the "constantly connected".
:(
Pros:
* I don't have to be in the office to actually "work". I am hardly there anyway as my work is supporting POS in a retail environment.
* I travel around a lot and am constantly in touch with others.
* I can schedule doctors, dentists, mortage, and other personal appointments whenever I feel like it.
* I can see a hit movie in the middle of an afternoon if I want. I saw Spider-Man that way and it was worth the afternoon.
* I hardly ever take vacation because I can take a Friday and drive to my Mom's , or Banff or wherever and take a long weekend as long as I can stay in touch with my Blackberry. As long as there is GSM service, I can be there (unless I really do take vacation).
* I determine what the priorities are and what my schedule is to a large degree. Sipping a margarita in the pool at a friend's house in the middle of Summer. *sigh* That was a good Summer.
* I can watch The View in the morning. OK, that's probably a con as there is nothing else on...
Cons:
* I must be on available for calls pretty much 24/7.
* I sometimes have to break important plans or appointments to solve problems or go to the trouble including having to break those fun three day weekends.
* I am expected to have instant answers to perplexing problems hundreds or thousands of miles away and solve those problems over the phone.
* I am many times engaged with work for 12, 14 or 18 hours at a time solving large scale problems or installing new locations.
* Putting down the margarita, getting out of the pool and driving six hours to a location to figure out what the alarm at a location is refusing to release a data line and having to fix the fuckup and completely rewire it and get back home at four in the morning.
* One of only two people in the company covering the entire country with the answer to a problem. The responsibility gets to you sometimes.
* When your friends tell you that you have no life other than work.
* Standing at my best friends wedding as the best man at the front of the church during the service and my Blackberry rings and I insisted that I had to answer it. That's when everyone figured I had a problem.
* Actually looking forward to the fucking View in the morning. God damn you Starr Jones! I hate that bitch...and that annoying skinny blonde.
I'm not sure I agree with this. Being on call is real work because it limits your freedom to do the things you'd normally do outside work to relax.
Many of the people using this technology are doing so because they've been given no choice or have been led to believe that they're somehow not important unless they're constantly available at someone else's whim.
The ones who are likely to welcome this are people who already work freelance in jobs such as writing and journalism, like the author of the article maybe? They already have to do time management and have a large amount of control over their working hours. Nobody is likely to ring them at 3AM to complain about a typo in their last article for example.
When 'on call' means supporting complicated systems that run 24/7 it's different. You have no control over the timing and you can't switch your phone off if you need to deal with something important outside work. People in other timezones will call you at convenient times for them, regardless of your situation.
I'm not saying being on call is all bad and some companies manage it very well but its somewhat naive to assume that giving people more connectivity will give them more control over their work rather than less.
Ame
In the work life of a lot of people, being connected 24/7 is now pretty much like being in the office 24/7. Yes, there is an off switch. Using it will just get you scalded because "we couldn't get hold of you like the hundreds of other times the minute we wanted to".
It certainly won't improve your work life, it just will make you more of a serf.
The only cases in favour that I can find would be artists waiting for employment and possibly self employed people who can at least more or less set their own rules.
In our private lives, being in touch 24/7 currently means that for a lot of people, no plans are made any more. Everything is now decided on the spur of the moment. Planning a dinner or a night out with friends is no longer possible. They will wait until the latest minute to see if there isn't anything more exciting going on elsewhere (of course they'll attempt to drag you along). Let's hope the dog enjoys whatever meal it was you cooked for the occasion.
Here too, not answering the phone (or turning it off) is immediately suspicious ("are you filtering me?"). And can lead to problematic relationship issues with friends.
Disclaimer: Those are my experiences in Europe, in your location YMMV.
Disclaimer 2: My cell phone is now off most of the time.
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I think "Always On" can be positive, but in retrospect to the position on call. For support, data entry and sales I think that is a great idea. For development...not so good. For example:
Sales Person A wants to work for a couple hours so they log into the corporate servers at home and answer a few emails. The duration of their login, and what "work" is done is documented to prevent abuse etc, and they are credited with the work (hours, commission etc.). Say they want to go to an early movie...they can check out at anytime, and when one person checks out a text message is sent to all offline employees notifying them of a slot available for work. Only X amount of slots are allotted at any given time.
Now of course I just thought of that off the top of my head, but I think there is legitimate promise to a system like that.
Maybe an open source project would be a great place to test a system like that?
I think one thing that this story is missing is the way that connectivity can really improve your social life. As a young guy still working a fairly lame non-cubicle job, connectivity makes my social life much easier. With a cellphone that not only makes basic calls with plenty of minutes, but also text messaging and mobile AIM, I can contact virtually all of my friends at any time and schedule any kind of get-together I want.
It used to be that if you wanted to get all of your friends together, you'd have to call all of them, and if they didn't answer their phone, you either leave a message on their machine at home or just have to call them back. Now, I just type in the message "Sushi tonight?" and send it to the eight people that have cellphones with text messaging, and then load up mobile AIM for the one or two that don't. In five minutes, I'd easily convinced all of my friends to go to the same restaurant as soon as they got out of work.
I also don't come home to any tedious questions or demands. I already know from text messages during the day that someone was too busy to feed the dogs, so I just walk in and do it. I already know that my sister had a bad day at work and I can read every detail of it while I'm eating lunch at work, rather than listening to a furious rant as soon as I've switched from "work mood" to "relaxed mood" when I walk in the door at home.
Connectivity makes life a lot easier in this regard. If I could do my work like this, it would even better.
and that's one of the dangers of "constant connectivity" is that it's amazingly hard to turn off. The ceremony hadn't started yet, but I felt compelled to answer the phone. Problem is if I don't answer the phone, the person at the other end panics and does something stupid in an attempt to fix the problem and ends up making things much, much worse. It's just easier to take the call and solve the problem. Needless to say, it was taken away from me. :)
While it's true that there's that "off" switch that's always available, the nature of the beast is always tempting you to leave it on. I have a number of friends who get ecstatic when their phone dies or gets lost because of the rush of freedom they feel, but they would never purposefully leave it behind or turn it off.
... he can't. Everyone thinks they could just turn off the TV or computer and have more alone time ... but they don't.
The internet can be sort of like drugs. Every addict thinks he can quit whenever he wants to, but the truth is
Like many older people, I have a pay-as-you-go cellphone for emergencies and genuine need. I am able to make an appointment and keep it, without 7/8 intermediate cellphone conversations. And, as the original post said, I'm not interested in being 'available' at all times or babbling every inconsequential thought as I 'think' it. I enjoy staring out of the bus window and it's cheaper too. Some people get quite angry when I won't give them my cell number and I tell them that I don't use it. I've also noticed that the internet is much more central to my life since broadband, I going to have to chase it back down to a reasonable level too.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
If there's anything electronic in my room made after 2000, it doesn't have an off switch, merely a power cable and a "soft" power button.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Unless you are self-employed, a tech-addict, or someone else who's constant connectivity is self-mandated. If it is mandated by by your employer, then the off switch is really a "reprimand me" button. Don't believe me? Whatever 'it' is, leave 'it' off and see what happens.
As for whether connectivity hinders or enhances your productivity, it really depends your job and the tasks/responsibilities thereof. I was constantly connected at my last job. It helped somethings... like being able to respond to emergencies (both real ones and management-defined ones) and being able to reach co-workers to ask questions or offer/recieve assistance. But it hurt a lot of other areas, like being able to finish a task or talk to a customer without interruption. Luckily my boss allowed us to use the 'off' switch. Yours may not. I found that in order to get any actual work done, I had to turn the instant-link radio off, shut down email, and forward the phone to voicemail... effectively cutting off my precious connectivity. But I could only do this rarely because 'people needed to reach me'. In the end, it was basically a wash. An incredibly annoying wash. Even when its a definite benefit, it's still annoying.
In my personal life, being constantly connected is more of a blessing... but its a one-way connection. When either of the phones ring, I let voicemail catch it unless it is my wife or I am expecting a call. My 'goal' is get people out of the notion that they can pick up a phone and interrupt me whenever they feel like it. My phones are for my convienience... not anyone else's. Most people have gotten the hint that if they need to reach me then the best way to do it is to send me an email or leave me a message. If they need to reach me NOW, RIGHT NOW DAMMIT, then most of them are out of luck. I don't do 'now, right now dammit'. Those closest to me can email my blackberry for a rapid response... once I've decided whether one is necessary. I think this is the way its supposed to work, even at work. Unfortunately we lack the power to do it anywhere other than our private lives. And by 'it' I mean the philosophy that the end user... the reciever of the message/phone call... should be in the position to determine whether it interrupts them or not. The default mode of instant-connectivity takes that decision out of our hands and puts it in the hands of technology, but... at least personally... we can take that power back. Unless you are self-employed, a tech-addict, or someone else who's constant connectivity is self-mandated. If it is mandated by your employer, then the off switch is really a "reprimand me" button. Don't believe me? Whatever 'it' is, leave 'it' off and see what happens.
As for whether connectivity hinders or enhances your productivity, it really depends your job and the tasks/responsibilities thereof. I was constantly connected at my last job. It helped some things... like being able to respond to emergencies (both real ones and management-defined ones) and being able to reach co-workers to ask questions or offer/receive assistance. But it hurt a lot of other areas, like being able to finish a task or talk to a customer without interruption. I found that in order to get any actual work done, I had to turn the instant-link radio off, shut down email, and forward the phone to voicemail... effectively cutting off my precious connectivity. But I could only do this rarely because 'people needed to reach me'. In the end, it was basically a wash. An incredibly annoying wash. Even when its a definite benefit, it's still annoying.
In my personal life, being constantly connected is more of a blessing... but its a one-way connection. When either of the phones ring, I let voicemail catch it unless it is my wife or I am expecting a call. My 'goal' is get people out of the notion that they can pick up a phone and interrupt me whenever they feel like it. My phones are for my convenience... not anyone else's. Most people have gotten th
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... has one of my managers gone, then? His out-of-office autoreply claims he will have "no access to email".
Yet I get paged while I'm on holidays. Hmm.
...when your power goes out, you can still get on with your life.
In the big black-out in the northeastern U.S. in 2003, people who absolutely relied on Internet access/email/etc. were suddenly paralyzed. The withdrawal symptoms were sad to watch. If you really want to interrupt the Internet, forget DoS attacks: just cut the power.
Anyway, I make my living online, but I'm offline more than not. I don't want to be efficiently working ALL DAY LONG; I want to work when I have to, and spend the rest of the time with my spouse and kids, doing non-electronic things. Cook. Draw. Read. Hike. Camp. Wrestle. Play chess or poker with real material objects. Take a nap.
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I teach gifted middle school kids. After some interesting phone calls at home last year (from parents) my boss suggested I only use e-mail and refuse to give out my phone number. Life has been much better since then. Smart bosses understand that everyone needs some downtime and control over their schedule. Of course, smart bosses are in short supply -- I'm lucky on that count. The best ways to be connected are mobile (so I can choose the place) and asynchronous (so I can choose the time).