Tuesday, May 13, 2008

"Technoslave?" - continued...

This is a response to Bre's post "Technoslave?" Thanks for your post Bre.

I, right now more than ever, am a slave to my technology. I love the story about the guy throwing the phone out the window. I am so enslaved that I believe even if I threw my phone out of the window they would quickly find another way to contact me; landline, email, Facebook, MySpace, Skype, MSN, iChat... the list goes on. And these are just the methods of contact that I voluntarily use!

Meanwhile I'm multitasking working on my web-log project, a research paper in word and managing to clear my inbox of the emails come thick and fast to my four email accounts from work colleagues, university lecturers, friends and spammers - I'm exhausted just thinking about all the things I have to do tonight. And then I hear the news that multi-taskers like myself get less done. The New York Times reported that technology has increased the level of multitasking in the workplace and that

“beyond an optimum, more multitasking is associated with declining project completion rates" (Aral & Brynjolfsson cited in Lohr, 2007).

I understand the concept but I'm so damn engaged with technology that I'm going to need to do a university degree to teach me how to live a life without it!



References:

Lohr, S. (2007, March 2). Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and Don’t Read This in Traffic. New York Times. Retrieved May 12, 2008, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/business/25multi.html?_r=1&ex=1332475200&en=f2&oref=slogin

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A few weeks ago in my blog I highlighted some recent research at Oxford that shows that, contrary to popular belief, older workers might be better prepared to function in a multitasking environment than their younger counterparts.

http://ciscoetl.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/hardhats-for-tomorrows-knowledge-workers/

The researchers said that younger workers (18-21) who are subjected to constant interruption exhibit symptoms similar to suffering a ”kick in the head” and that older workers (35-39) fare much better under similar circumstances.

So there might be some hope for us oldster...

isha said...

Good point. I had a quick look at that research and it seems to point to a drop in productivity for both age groups but less of a drop for those in the older group.

I feel like I've been "kicked in the head" most days at work. Does that suggest that as I get older I will feel less "kicked in the head" after a day at work? Lol.

By the way, that's a great blog you have there. Is that a Cisco company initiative?