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The horrors of hyperconnectivity and how to restore a degree of freedom
Mar 10th 2012 | from the print edition
THE SERVANT (1963) is one of those films that it is impossible to forget a
merciless dissection of the relationship between a scheming valet (played by
Dirk Bogarde) and his dissolute master (James Fox). The valet exploits his
master s weaknesses until he turns the tables: the story ends with a cringing
Fox ministering to a lordly Bogarde. The film was an indictment of the class
structure of Harold Macmillan s Britain. But it is hard to watch it today
without thinking of another fraught relationship the one between businessfolk
and their smartphones.
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 tomorrow. The dratted devices also make it easier
for managers in one time zone to spoil the evenings of managers in another.
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 s telecommunications regulator, says that a
startling 60% of teenagers who use smartphones describe themselves as highly
addicted to their devices. So do 37% of adults.
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.
Economist.com/blogs/schumpeter
from the print edition | Business