The New York Times published two articles this past week, both related to the issue of technological connectivity. Gary Shteyngart wrote ‘Only Disconnect’ and Laurie Winer wrote ‘Born to Check’, both published on July 9, 2010.
In Gary’s article, he speaks of existential distress at acquiring his ‘iTelephone’, noting how he used to absorb the environment like an artist, and how the device had molded him into a robotic state manipulated by the strings of the wireless world. He celebrates when the network makes connection impossible so that he and his friends can make meaningful contact over the primal event of a meal and some fine scotch in the setting of stars, and trees and chirping birds. I can identify with Gary’s experience.
Laurie discusses the current times of connectivity, from an evolutionary, intellectual perspective, concluding (with the supportive influence of a media and technology writer) that technology brings change, and we accommodate; actually, that in fact, we benefit.
I’m seeing this ‘Connectivity’ issue pop-up more frequently. Is ‘Constant Connectivity’ going to invade our lives and turn us into an army of reactive robots? Or will we reach a boiling point, revolt and shun connectivity?
I suspect neither. I suspect ‘Connectivity’ will challenge us and we will respond. Just like so many other shifts in our human history.
Remember ‘Work-from-Home’?
For just a moment, let’s remember back to the mid-1990s. The ‘work-from-home’ phenomenon was emerging. Workers would negotiate approval to ‘work-from-home’, in some capacity, be it one day a week or full-time. Connectivity via networking and mobile technology devices made this possible: laptops, intranets, cell phones, email, conference calling.
I recall the co-occurring ‘work-from-home’ angst too: fear that it would bring with it a state of ‘always on’. It came true. With this technology came greater demands on time; we had 6:00 am conference calls because suddenly we could link nationally or internationally, so we did. But what also came with this technology was greater flexibility.
Now, I’ll generalize and say that the ‘work-from-home’ phenomenon is all but dead – at least in the formal sense. Now, we all* ‘work-from-home’: sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late at night, sometimes midday too. But we also attend our kid’s ‘step-up to grade 1’ graduation, we also enjoy working sessions in a park or on a restaurant patio, and we review materials late at night from the comfort of our homes rather than the walls of our work. We figured it out, and now mobile working is a part of every day, for most people*. We are always on, yes, but we can also control when we are off to a degree we couldn’t pre-1995-ish.
The Future -- with Connectivity.
As technology continues to infiltrate our lives, we will become increasingly accessible; the demands of connection, people and work, will become more prolific. But we’ll adapt, just like we’ve always done.
- ‘Work time’ and ‘personal time’ will evolve so we will each personally and hence collectively redefine those concepts.
- We’ll work differently. Perhaps the walls of ‘the office’ will fall. I suspect this is likely. Workspaces will become more ad-hoc, more spontaneous, more pop-up. The pub, the coffee shop, the park. Already I see restaurants building conference style rooms for private groups – to facilitate working lunches/ dinners/ etc… Perhaps ‘the home’ will step in to fill some of this need. The back deck, the rec room, the front porch. I suspect this is also likely.
- We’ll communicate differently. Perhaps we’ll come to have more value for text, email and other non-voice forms of communication because they provide some personal distance and facilitate some moderated level of connection. Personal face-time kinds of communication will be for the more intimate, more connected, more relationship-driven tasks like creative ideation, client presentations, group team building. We’ll be more intentional about our use of face-time.
- ‘Connected’ spaces and ‘Dis-Connected’ spaces will cease to exist in any physical form, so we’ll create them ourselves.
- We’ll carve out personal ‘spaces’. My child’s spring concert = turn of the mobile device. My husband is talking to me about something very important to him = turn off the mobile device. The sky is just the right shade of red = capture that with a camera, or just with the camera of the eye. And those personal spaces will take different forms for each of us.
- We’ll carve out work ‘spaces’ too. We’ll wake up an extra hour early to use our most productive time to set goals for the day or make progress on a creative project. Lunch may become a working time; where many will continue to head out for the midday snack, others may hunker down for an hour or so of uninterrupted work.
The future will look different with the impacts and influences of technology and its facilitated connectivity. But it will force us not to divide work and personal so much, which is a good thing, because our work is a huge part of our person.
* Note: I do realize I am commenting more accurately about the experience of the white collar North American professional worker.
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