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May 22, 2006
Tools that make us dumb?
So much for the principle of "smart phones" - those devices that allow us to extend our working environment into our homes and holidays, gyms and restaurants and and umm, apparently, lavatories.
In an article which suggests that devices like the Blackberry keep us umbilically connected to our e-mail etc, at the csot of "solitude, focus and our boundaries", Sydney organisational psychologist, Grant Brecht says English research found people can work at 100 per cent efficiency for only 45 hours a week.
Drag another 10 hours out-of them, and their efficiency halves. and after that they're performing at no better than 25 per cent efficiency. Brecht says workers who are always available on the mobile and who ring overseas at all hours to check international markets "work hard, but not smart".
We need leisure time, you see, in order to prepare ourselves to cope with the accelerated demand of communications from our obsessive-compulsive colleagues who apparently rneed to be tied down to stop them despatching text messages and e-mails, despite the fact that these electronic communications lack the content of more direct contact.
A psychologist, Evelyn Field, says: "It's not a good trend because it doesn't improve the quality of the friendship or relationship. It just becomes more 'busyness'. People can be very busy while not doing anything, and people can be communicating electronically and not getting closer; just doing it for the sake of it. It's almost as if it's a defence against anxiety."
Is it true? Is your Treo/JASJAR/Blackberry actually sapping your energy, rather than improving your productivity? Or is it camouflage ...an essential tool for an elaborate masquerade, in which you pretend to be busy and socially active, while actually keeping the world at bay?
Posted by cw at May 22, 2006 01:15 PM
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Comments
I think I was stupid to start with thinking I was reaching some kind of utopia. I started writing restaurant reviews directly into my Treo and typing notes in and then never got round to reading or publishing them. Then I started forgetting to take my phone dog walking and out with me at weekends or evenings. I realised that I could live without it. Now I may downsize from the Treo to my old pocket friendly Sony Ericsson as the calendar on it does everything I need.
Posted by: Ed Charles at May 23, 2006 04:14 PM