Do you ever wonder how you’d lead your daily life if electronic communications suddenly evaporated? If you are under the age of 30, you probably can’t even conceive of that because you know no other world. But if you’re older than that, particularly in your 40’s or beyond, you can hark back to the days where people conversed face-to-face, returned phone calls after their secretaries held messages for them while they were out of the office, and your mail piled up in your in-box when you were on vacation.
Years ago, when I was a journalist in Washington, D.C., we had a useful system for when the staff went on vacation. We got a substitute to do our jobs. That individual covered our beat, wrote the stories, did some editing, interviewing and writing.
It wasn’t perfect. We prepped them beforehand, walked them around to meet people, and gave them a lengthy note on the important stuff to cover. We could then clap our hands together, dust them off, and head off to whatever journey we had planned to get away from the work world and relax.
Since that time, the intensity of “keeping up” has risen at almost an exponential rate, kicking into high gear with email and widespread use of the Internet, followed by cell phones, smart phones and wireless access to information just about anywhere in the world. The expected reality is now to stay connected rather than disconnect and relax when you go on vacation.
This syndrome is not just experienced when you take time off and realize you are checking emails, voice mails and your smart phone for what is going on back in the office. It is experienced when you are home with your kids as they surf their phones while you are trying to watch a television show together. It is in the car, when you want to talk and hear about their day, and they are scanning through songs to put on their iPad so they can put in their ear plugs and tune-out.
When you watch these types of activities day after day, week after week, month after month, you begin to wonder what everyone would do if electronic communications suddenly went away. Recently, I had an overseas business trip, which to me is always a chance to read.
I brought two long novels with me. I finished one on the flight over, another while I was at the hotel and had to buy two more at the hotel airport for the flight back, and finished one of those and started the fourth. Each of the books was 300-400 pages long.
The solitude let me engage in the novels over an extended period of time. I thought about the plots, characters, themes and the writing itself, contemplating the joy of the author’s ability to string together phrases that made me pause and chuckle. How often do you do this today?
If communications went out, we’d read more, play board games, converse, play cards, read and get to know our neighbors. We’d rely more on each other for information and what is going on in our local community.
We use smart phones to kill boredom. Memorial Day weekend, I disconnected, did yard work, read, napped and spent time talking with my family. It felt super.
We can’t get completely away. But we can carve our days around the technologies that so relentlessly seek our attention and drive us to distraction.
Get the book out. Find a comfortable spot to lie down. Turn off your smart phone. Start focusing on the pages. You may nod off. That’s good. When you wake up, you’ll be refreshed and ready to read some more.
Years ago, when I was a journalist in Washington, D.C., we had a useful system for when the staff went on vacation. We got a substitute to do our jobs. That individual covered our beat, wrote the stories, did some editing, interviewing and writing.
It wasn’t perfect. We prepped them beforehand, walked them around to meet people, and gave them a lengthy note on the important stuff to cover. We could then clap our hands together, dust them off, and head off to whatever journey we had planned to get away from the work world and relax.
Since that time, the intensity of “keeping up” has risen at almost an exponential rate, kicking into high gear with email and widespread use of the Internet, followed by cell phones, smart phones and wireless access to information just about anywhere in the world. The expected reality is now to stay connected rather than disconnect and relax when you go on vacation.
This syndrome is not just experienced when you take time off and realize you are checking emails, voice mails and your smart phone for what is going on back in the office. It is experienced when you are home with your kids as they surf their phones while you are trying to watch a television show together. It is in the car, when you want to talk and hear about their day, and they are scanning through songs to put on their iPad so they can put in their ear plugs and tune-out.
When you watch these types of activities day after day, week after week, month after month, you begin to wonder what everyone would do if electronic communications suddenly went away. Recently, I had an overseas business trip, which to me is always a chance to read.
I brought two long novels with me. I finished one on the flight over, another while I was at the hotel and had to buy two more at the hotel airport for the flight back, and finished one of those and started the fourth. Each of the books was 300-400 pages long.
The solitude let me engage in the novels over an extended period of time. I thought about the plots, characters, themes and the writing itself, contemplating the joy of the author’s ability to string together phrases that made me pause and chuckle. How often do you do this today?
If communications went out, we’d read more, play board games, converse, play cards, read and get to know our neighbors. We’d rely more on each other for information and what is going on in our local community.
We use smart phones to kill boredom. Memorial Day weekend, I disconnected, did yard work, read, napped and spent time talking with my family. It felt super.
We can’t get completely away. But we can carve our days around the technologies that so relentlessly seek our attention and drive us to distraction.
Get the book out. Find a comfortable spot to lie down. Turn off your smart phone. Start focusing on the pages. You may nod off. That’s good. When you wake up, you’ll be refreshed and ready to read some more.