The
horrors of hyperconnectivity—and how to restore a degree of freedom
Smart devices are sometimes empowering. They put a world
of information at our fingertips. They free people to work from home instead of
squeezing onto a train with malodorous strangers. That is a huge boon for
parents seeking flexible work hours. Smartphones and tablets can also promote
efficiency by allowing people to get things done in spare moments that would
otherwise be wasted, such as while queuing for coffee. They can even help
slackers create the illusion that they are working around the clock, by
programming their e-mail to be sent at 1am.
But for most people the servant has become the master.
Not long ago only doctors were on call all the time. Now everybody is. Bosses
think nothing of invading their employees’ free time. Work invades the home far
more than domestic chores invade the office. Otherwise-sane people check their
smartphones obsessively, even during pre-dinner drinks, and send e-mails first
thing in the morning and last thing at night.
This is partly because smartphones are addictive: when
Martin Lindstrom, a branding guru, tried to identify the ten sounds that affect
people most powerfully, he found that a vibrating phone came third, after the
Intel chime and a giggling baby. BlackBerrys and iPhones provide relentless stimuli
interspersed with rewards. Whenever you check the glowing rectangle, there is a
fair chance you will see a message from a client, a herogram from your boss or
at least an e-mail from a Nigerian gentleman offering you $1m if you share your bank details with him.
Smartphones are the best excuse yet devised for procrastination. How many
people can honestly say that they have never pruned their e-mails to put off
tackling more demanding tasks?
Hyperconnectivity exaggerates some of the most
destabilising trends in the modern workplace: the decline of certainty (as
organisations abandon bureaucracy in favour of adhocracy), the rise of global
supply chains and the general cult of flexibility. Smartphones make it easier
for managers to change their minds at the last moment: for example, to e-mail a
minion at 11pm to tell him he must fly to Pittsburgh
Employees find it ever harder to distinguish between
“on-time” and “off-time”—and indeed between real work and make-work. Executives
are lumbered with two overlapping workdays: a formal one full of meetings and
an informal one spent trying to keep up with the torrent of e-mails and
messages.
None of this is good for businesspeople’s marriages or
mental health. It may be bad for business, too. When bosses change their minds
at the last minute, it is hard to plan for the future. And several studies have
shown what ought to be common sense: that people think more deeply if they are
not constantly distracted.
What can be done to keep smartphones in their place? How
can we reap the benefits of connectivity without becoming its slaves? One
solution is digital dieting. Just as the abundance of junk food means that
people have to be more disciplined about their eating habits, so the abundance
of junk information means they have to be more disciplined about their browsing
habits. Banning browsing before breakfast can reintroduce a modicum of
civilisation. Banning texting at weekends or, say, on Thursdays, can really
show the iPhone who is boss.
Together we can outsmart our phones
The problem with this approach is that it works only if
you live on a desert island or at the bottom of a lake. In “Sleeping with Your
Smartphone”, a forthcoming book, Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School
argues that for most people the only way to break the 24/7 habit is to act
collectively rather than individually. She tells the story of how one of the
world’s most hard-working organisations, the Boston Consulting Group, learned
to manage hyperconnectivity better. The firm introduced rules about when people
were expected to be offline, and encouraged them to work together to make this
possible. Many macho consultants mocked the exercise at first—surely only wimps
switch off their smartphones? But eventually it forced people to work more
productively while reducing burnout.
Ms Perlow’s advice should be taken seriously. The problem
of hyperconnectivity will only get worse, as smartphones become smarter and
young digital natives take over the workforce. People are handing ever more of
their lives over to their phones, just as James Fox handed ever more of his
life over to Dirk Bogarde. You can now download personal assistants (such as
Apple’s Siri) that tell you what is on your schedule, and virtual personal
trainers that urge you take more exercise. Ofcom , Britain
The faster smartphones become and the more alluring the
apps that are devised for them, the stronger the addiction will grow. Spouses
can help by tossing the darned devices out of a window or into a bucket of
water. But ultimately it is up to companies to outsmart the smartphones by
insisting that everyone turn them off from time to time.
