> Telecommunications (A Special Report): Decisions, Decisions
> ---
> Is there a downside to being connected all the time?
> By Rebecca Blumenstein
>
> 09/10/2001
> The Wall Street Journal
>
> ROBERT REICH, the former secretary of labor, has consistently questioned
> whether the
> proliferation of communications and technology is improving our lives.
> From his position in the
> Clinton administration, Prof. Reich had the opportunity to examine how
> productivity increased as
> use of the Internet exploded. But he also observed that new technologies
> often require employees
> to "stay connected" for longer periods than ever before -- checking work
> e-mail at home, for
> instance, or keeping a beeper or cellphone turned on at all hours. And
> that, he argues, has led to a
> blurring of home and work, and a disruption of personal lives, that in
> many ways negates the
> increases in productivity technology has brought.
>
> Prof. Reich now teaches at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and
> has written about some of
> the drawbacks of technology in his most recent book, "The Future of
> Success."
>
> Wall Street Journal reporter Rebecca Blumenstein spoke to Prof. Reich
> about his observations:
>
> THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: What sort of impact does the proliferation of
> communications
> have on our lives?
>
> MR. REICH: The boundaries are blurring. In the old days, we might have
> taken work home in a
> briefcase and then late at night maybe gone through it and done whatever
> needed to be done. Now
> we turn on the computer. And everything we do during the day is right in
> front of us. All the
> connections, all the people, all the problems and all the projects are
> going 24 hours a day. It's not
> just the computer. It's the pager, the cellphone, the voice mail and the
> instant messaging. If we are
> on a fast track, and we want to take time off of work, the burden is on
> us to decide how and when
> we are going to disconnect.
>
> WSJ: Hasn't disconnecting always been hard?
>
> MR. REICH: [The difference is that these days] you may manage to
> disconnect, but the work keeps
> flowing in. The electronic inbox doesn't stop accumulating items that
> are often labeled "urgent."
> There is an enormous temptation, almost an addiction in some cases, to
> reconnect. And even if you
> manage to disconnect, for a time, all of the connections that have been
> unattended to are waiting
> for you when you reconnect. The rest of the world doesn't necessarily
> respect the fact that you
> have disconnected. The assumption is that you are available.
>
> WSJ: So, communications is not helping us do our jobs more easily?
>
> MR. REICH: Rather than giving us greater ease and convenience of
> managing the work flow, the
> connectedness has put us in a sea of work without any boundaries or
> limits. It comes just at a time,
> not coincidentally, when organizations are flattening into partnerships
> and webs of contacts, so
> that the people who need to reach you are likely to be people whom you
> have not dealt with before.
> Whatever informal rules you have for when and how you are to be reached
> are not necessarily
> understood by this far-flung web of people and connections.
>
> WSJ: Is there a distinction between the roles of communications and the
> Internet?
>
> MR. REICH: In another few years, we won't separate the Internet from all
> of these different devices.
> There is coming to be an integrated, almost seamless, system for total
> connectivity. We are only
> steps away from it. And each and every one of us will be connected to
> almost everyone on the
> planet if we wish -- the question we will have to answer is how and
> under what terms we want to be
> connected.
>
> WSJ: But doesn't communications improve efficiency?
>
> MR. REICH: There is an efficiency problem. The more easily we are
> connected to everyone else, the
> more we have to create filters against overconnectedness. Obviously, not
> all communications to us
> are equal in importance. A person, in order to be efficient at his or
> her job, has to generate all sorts
> of filtering mechanisms to assure that only the most relevant and
> important messages get through.
> But these filters themselves can be quite inefficient and require a
> great deal of energy. Then the
> question is, what do you do with all the communications that are not the
> highest priority?
>
> WSJ: Hasn't the proliferation of technology and communications increased
> the nation's
> productivity?
>
> MR. REICH: Technology has spurred productivity because technologies have
> given consumers
> and investors far greater choices for where to put their money. This has
> intensified competition,
> and the more intense the competition, the more innovative everyone has
> to be in terms of
> producing faster, cheaper and better products. This is great for
> productivity. But it also means that
> most of us have to work longer and harder and hustle more intensely to
> attract and keep every
> customer. The productivity numbers are a bit exaggerated because they
> fail to take account for the
> fact that most of us are putting in many more hours.
>
> WSJ: So, you question the value of this increased productivity?
>
> MR. REICH: It is far from clear that what we are giving up in terms of
> privacy and hours, our own
> hours, is justified by the benefits we are getting from all of these new
> gadgets. Strip away the extra
> hours, and add in the additional stresses and the necessity for being
> always on, and it's not
> absolutely clear that the new connectivity is such a great boon to our
> quality of life. I don't mean to
> sound like a neo-Luddite. Obviously, these new means of connecting
> enable us to do far more than
> we could before. The question is, if you stand back and look at the
> whole picture, are we really that
> much better off?
>
> WSJ: What is the actual impact of this always-on mentality on people's
> lives?
>
> MR. REICH: The average middle-income family with children put in seven
> more weeks of work last
> year than it did in 1990. That is a huge increase in working hours. And
> it had to come from
> somewhere. Either they slept fewer hours or they had less time for each
> other or less time for the
> kids or less time for themselves. But it is not only the sheer number of
> hours. It is also the quality
> of the time. Both on and off work. Many measures suggest that work is
> more stressful today than it
> used to be and that private time is compressed into bite-size chinks,
> highly scheduled and more
> frantic.
>
> WSJ: Do people realize the change?
>
> MR. REICH: Most people are aware that they personally are having a
> harder time meeting all of
> their obligations to work, their partners and spouses, children and
> friends -- and also to their
> communities. But they usually see this as a personal inadequacy. As I
> traveled around the country,
> interviewing people for the book, I kept hearing the same refrain: "I
> can't meet all my obligations."
>
> But most people internalize all of this. They think that they are at
> fault, that they should be doing a
> better job. Women have been feeling this way for many years. But ever
> since a greater number of
> women have been moving into paid work, men are starting to sound this
> way as well. But neither
> women nor men understand that they are feeling more pressed because of
> some major structural
> and technological changes in the economy. It is not just a matter of
> their own personal inadequacy
> or failing -- their jobs have changed dramatically, and technologies are
> having an effect.
>
> WSJ: Does this affect all workers?
>
> MR. REICH: Blue-collar workers are facing a much more volatile job
> market; wages move up and
> down more dramatically depending on overtime hours. Technology is
> changing almost every one
> of their jobs. And there is almost no such thing as a routine factory
> job any longer or a routine
> clerical job. Go to today's factories or clerical jobs, and you will see
> an abundance of hardware and
> software continuously being upgraded and altered.
>
> WSJ: Are you hearing more people complain about the drawbacks to
> technology?
>
> MR. REICH: There has always been a Luddite or neo-Luddite conversation
> in modern economies.
> But that is not what we ought to be having. The question is not, should
> we get rid of all this -- that
> would be a disaster. The technologies are dramatically improving the
> efficiency of many aspects of
> our lives. They are creating many opportunities for us. The real
> question is how we exert some
> more control over them -- how we manage them so that they don't control
> us.
>
> And that is the conversation we ought to be having. It ranges from the
> effective use of filters with
> regard to communications to a new etiquette and norms to how people
> should and should not be
> interrupted to how businesses should respect certain aspects of
> employees' private lives and what
> can be appropriately expected of employees.
>
> WSJ: Has the recent economic slowdown provoked any reassessment about
> the use of all this
> technology?
>
> MR. REICH: The last few months have been a sobering reminder that
> technology is not the Holy
> Grail. It is not going to make us all instantly rich and deliver us to
> any promised land -- there is a
> sense of being brought down to earth. Many people are waking up and
> asking themselves, "What
> do I want and need out of all of this?"
>
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