A Little Unplugging Does You Good

In a recent article carried by Associated Press, Martha Irvine reports on the importance of unplugging from technology every now and again. Irvine quotes Michelle Weil, co-author of TechnoStress: Coping with Technology @ Work @ Home @ Play:

It’s like being lost in space. You get lost in the world of the Internet, games or multiple instant-message chats.

Whew — isn’t it?!

Apart from reflecting on the intensity of my own current use of technology in the context of keeping in touch with online counselling clients, I also found myself immediately thinking back to work colleagues from my time as a senior manager in a technology company. One colleague in particular — who shall go unnamed, of course — prided himself on answering emails 365 days per year and expected all his top team to do the same. I appreciated his commitment, and sometimes it was pretty handy to be able to get a response from him within a few hours just about any time I wanted. But at the same time, I guess I resented the suggestion that those of us who did not want to be answering emails 365 days per year were somehow not up to scratch. We agreed to disagree on the matter, and I suppose he went on thriving on the idea that other people so needed to communicate with him every day of the year that he just had to stay plugged in. (I feel myself getting a little snide just writing that…)

Irvine finishes her article with some quotations from others that manage to articulate something I kind of wish I had been better able to articulate at the time — especially the comments about boundaries:

…having the ability to stay in constant contact makes some people feel obligated to be plugged in 24/7.

“There’s a message that setting boundaries isn’t right — an expectation that we shouldn’t set those boundaries,” says Allan Stegeman, a professor of communications at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

Greenfield notes that some people also feel pressure to keep up with the latest technology, whether they need it or not.

“It points to a larger theme in our culture — that new things are good and better, and that more is better, and faster is better. And that’s not always the case,” says Greenfield, who wrote the book Virtual Addiction, which looks at the adverse effects of spending too much time online.

Greenfield recalls a recent fall trip with his 10-year-old son to a YMCA camp, where they were doing trail maintenance with a group of adults and other kids — no TVs, computers or even hand-held video games.

“These kids had no technology with them,” he says. “And they were as thoroughly entertained and alive as I’ve ever seen them.”

Weil agrees that taking a break from high-tech gadgets is vital — a point she often addresses on the public speaking circuit. The key, she says, is using technology to enhance life — and taking a step back when it doesn’t.

“You need to have it,” Weil says, “rather than it having you.”

That old work colleague of mine…I wonder if technology ‘got him’ in the end?

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