To be or not to be…connected 24/7?
March 7, 2008 by entrepreneurgoddess
Filed under Biz
What has the world come to? Do you feel the pressure? I do. Yes, the pressure to always be “available” 24/7. Having a cell phone, land line, and checking my email a couple of times a day no longer feels like enough in this world. It’s the feeling that if I don’t respond fast enough, someone else will. Anxiety? Perhaps. But in the day and age of the super duper mega all-in-one thingamajig “super phone” that fit in your pocket or purse, I feel like I can’t keep up.
No, I don’t have one. Not yet. I have never even wanted one. To me it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Blackberry, iPod, Palm Pilot, PDA, or anything else. Quite frankly, I’m not up to speed on that technology and I have never really cared about owning one of those contraptions.
However, I recently found myself mildly interested in attaining one of those things. I think receiving too many emails to count day after day sparked an appeal. Leaving my computer for a few hours to run errands or for a meeting and then coming back to an overwhelming amount of emails can be stressful. I delete or file the ones I can, but the emails that actually require a response can eat up so much time. I started doing the math and daydreaming about being able to respond to emails while waiting in line at Office Depot or Starbucks. Maybe if I had one of those fancy cell phones, returning to my computer wouldn’t be such a daunting task after all.
Just as fast as I became interested in owning a super phone, I became extremely disinterested. In reality, the last thing I want to do is be a slave to electronic media 24/7. So much of my work is computer based that I can’t stand the thought of being literally connected to the world every single moment I’m actually away from my computer. After giving it further thought, I feel that constantly being connected would stress me out more than just letting the emails go for a few hours (or even a day or two).
I strongly believe the reason I receive so many emails is because of those super phones. People send me emails on their lunch breaks, while waiting in line at the grocery store, running on the treadmill, sitting on the beach, and while driving. It wouldn’t surprise me if an email or two didn’t originate from a bathroom stall. Welcome to 2008!
Why do people feel the need to be connected 24/7? Fifteen years ago the world operated just fine when cell phones were far too expensive for the average Jane and before Microsoft bought Hotmail. Super phones have become all the rage because the media has made us believe we can’t live without them and big multinational corporations have bought all their employees super phones so they can be on-duty, for free, 24/7 without noticing. Now nearly everyone wants one.
We can do more things than ever in a short amount of time, but are we really that productive? The other day I spent an entire morning shooting off “important” emails to people who never responded. I guess they weren’t that important after all. There are days when I sit at my computer extremely busy doing a million different things and at the end of the day I feel like I haven’t done a thing. I’d be cramming even more movements into my day without ever taking time for myself if I owned a super phone. My eyes would really hurt.
I’m my own boss and I’ve made the executive decision that my small business will not own a super phone. Having one of those super phones is like being an office troll all over again. Whatever it is, it can wait another hour or two or three for me to check my email from home. If it’s a real “have to know now” emergency, my cell phone is almost always on. And no, I don’t do text messages.
This article has been an official public announcement that I, Entrepreneur Goddess, refuse to be connected 24/7 and join in on the super phone rat race / slave trade.
Where do you stand on the issue?
