Connected Disconnected: When is too much enough?

 Skype is doing a new thing.  It sends me email alerts when someone leaves a voice mail message on my office phone.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  I have 4 email accounts, 2 laptops, a desktop, a Blackberry, an Ipod touch and a Skype phone.  I am wired into a variety of devices.

Now, being "wired" is pretty convenient in a lot ways.  Running my own business means I need to be informed.  So if I am out of the office for the day, it's handy to be notified via my Blackberry that I have an important email incoming, an SMS or a voice mail pending.  But here is how this generally works out.

I'm in a 2 hour meeting and when I get back to my car and check my phone there are 27-35 notifications!!  I have email, sms, Skype alerts, missed calls, voice mails, and Facebook notifications.  I turn on my Ipod and guess what?  I have 27-35 notifications.  I have email, RSS feeds, Skype and Facebook notifications.  Much of this is redundant. I read the things that are necessary and delete the things that aren't.  I get back to my office and... Everything is blinking!  I receive the emails on my desktop which removes the copy from the server for my permanent files, check the phone messages, post the blog comments, check the Facebook crap.  Good Lord... even the High School sends me voice mail messages and email notifications regarding snow days and vacation schedules for my son.  I have no idea how long, during the course of the day and night, I spend responding to notifications of some sort or another.  How many hours does this take out of my day?  I'm betting over the course of a month there is some pretty significant time involved here.

Two weeks ago I was interviewing photographer Jody Dole (who is fantastic BTW...look for my article on him in the April Edition of INK.)  We got to talking about distractions.  Jody pointed out that since moving to Connecticut from New York City, the distraction portion of his day has significantly increased.  While in NYC, if he wanted lunch he could have it delivered.  If there were errands to be run, there were messengers to do that.  Here in Connecticut, if you need something mailed... YOU go to the post office.  Want lunch?  YOU go make it.  Need office supplies?  YOU go to Staples.  Of course, this means if you leave the office you'll have 27 notifications on your Blackberry.

Despite our best intentions on being conscientious hardworking entrepreneurs, there comes a point when we need to be just regular disconnected people.  When can we go to the grocery store without talking on the phone while we pile milk and bread into our shopping carts.  There are times when we NEED to be with family and friends uninterrupted.  Of course, we can turn all the technology off.  I wonder if we can?  And even if we do, when we turn it back on... there will be 27 notifications waiting for us.

Comments

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

"....Computers are going to make everything easier..." Unknown Quote 1980

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

Lisa, I deal with it 60 hours a week.
I have 2 company phones, a personal phone
a company computer, a personal computer, a fax machine, a paging system and I deal with walk in customers all day long.

Definition of stress: "The minds ability to overide the bodies desire to choke the heck out somebody"

[Lisa]

Mark,
Yeah right?! I'm really not sure how I feel about it. If I leave my cell in my office, I fear I might miss a call from one of my sons (should they need me.) If I have my cell with me...the stupid thing sits there and vibrates constantly. And Blackberry doesn't really have an "off" switch for the email it delivers....absolutely ridiculous!

I really think we need to find a way to deal with the distractions so WE CAN ACTUALLY GET SOME WORK DONE! For heaven's sake!!

[The Dan Ward]

Ah, more fodder for my increasingly-not-tongue-in-cheek theory that computers don't actually save us any time.

Seriously, between the time we spend learning how to use them, waiting for them to respond/boot up / shut down, upgrading, replacing & troubleshooting them, plus doing the work necessary to earn the money to buy them (and all their peripherals and various services)... at some point, the time savings begin to look somewhat less significant.

Of course, they let us do some things we never could have done before, so that's cool. But they're not exactly time saving devices, are they?

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

Lisa,
It is called the RAT RACE!

Or as I so eloquently framed it 25 years ago...."The Gilligan's Island Syndrome"

7 people stranded in paradise stressing out to return to the "RAT RACE"... 250 million people in the "RAT RACE" trying to get to
"Gilligans Island" for a week.

The reality is you do not need a cell phone or a computer or a car. You are (like me ), just another American consumer with an appetite for consumer goods that has let society dictate their lifestyle. The hunger for bigger, better, faster, is gnawing at us night and day, more money, more technology, more power...it is a bottomless, insatiable desire to cover up our deeper loneliness and further isolation everyday. Look at Facebook, the new social "norm"... it used to be church where human touch was guaranteed, and people could read facial expressions & body language to see how you really felt.
Now it is the cold distance of a flat screen
that we use in place of grandmas touch, or the soothing voice of a solid religous leader ( regardless of what brand )
It isnt getting better!

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

We all make our own decisions, we all choose our parents, our gender and our preferences, we all have a karmic debt to pay. Maybe this is just human beings living in "original sin". Boy, things just havent been the same since the harmonic conversion!!. Makes you wanna live in a cave a walk in circles for 12 years. At least I would be hard-wired for my forms.

[Lisa]

Interesting you should write this Mark. I was just moments ago reading in the April 2009 issue of Print Magazine an article by Rick Poynor called "Strained Relations: What should 'relational aesthetics' mean to graphic designers?" Check it out if you are privy to Print Magazine. This article, I am SURE, will give you much to ponder upon and discusses the notion of 'relational art' as well:)

The article also references, the book "Relational Aesthetics" by Nicolas Bourriaud, stating it is "the most influential work of art criticism to appear in the last decade." Bourriaud, it says, defines 'relational aesthetics' as a theory that judges artworks 'on the basis of the inter-human relations which they represent, produce or prompt."

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

Thank you, I will check it out. Relational Art? Functional JKD? Military Intelligence?
First impression is that it sounds like it was written by someone who lives in their head.
I do not interpret my own sculpture and laugh my ass off when others do without even asking me first. Many are just regurgitating what was taught to them. I guess they have to justify spending daddies education money somehow, so they might as well sound smart, like their professors taught them.

"Oh, Yes, my dear Throckmorton, this appears to contain a 3-Dimensional genetic fallacy, based on my material analysis and
potent powers of rapier-like insight"

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

Lisa, how can you read in the future?
We are just starting March

[Lisa]

I KNEW you were going to say that! I actually had to check the cover of the mag twice... but indeed it is April's issue.

Another good article in that issue is John Maeda's "Make, Believe - a quest to find the heart of the creative process"

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

I see! now you are a psychic, future reader? Are you from California too?

[Mark Randall Kilburn]

I read the definition of "relational art" Sounds like Timothy Leary threw up
on Fidel Castro.

I refuse to subscribe to the socialistic, Marxist, bee-hive mentality. Of course, if I want to attach some esoteric socialistic
gobbledy-gook to a single peice of art, I guess we still live in America, and clearly separate rights and privileges. "The Collective" ??? "A horse designed by a commitee is a jackass" it cant breed and it is stubborn as hell. However, I was glad to see the part about getting away from the 60's...that was cool.