Technology and connectivity have definitely improved many aspects of our professional and personal lives.
Some of the benefits include being able to:
- Get things done quicker
- Do more activities
- Easily access vast amounts of information
- Stay in touch with people
However, they also have many downsides, which we should be aware of and manage. Here are some questions to think about:
- We might be doing more things but how many of those are really needed/useful?
- Is constant connectivity and doing everything instantly, making us work more or less?
- Are we becoming experts at multi-tasking, or developing a need for increased doses of stimulation?
- Are we getting severely overloaded with communications and information?
- How many times in a day do you press the Send/Receive button for your mailbox?
- How long can you go without looking at your phone?
- Are our relationships (and communications) becoming too superficial, controlled and focussed on the online world?
I don’t know about the other points but one thing I want to do right away, is to limit the number of times I take my IPhone out of my pocket, especially when I’m with other people.
Here is a related podcast of an interview with Sherry Turkle, MIT professor and author of Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 15:56 — 14.7MB)