Summer is here, and with it, the greatest amount of vacation, recreational travel, and general time away from the office for workaholic Americans. The sound that I recall most vividly from my last camping trip was not the call of the wild, but the call of cellular telephones ringing on the beach. Each ring brought a handful of parents scurrying out of the water to see if their line was ringing.
We used to shake our heads in dismay when we could see the telltale glow of a television inside a camper or a tent during an evening campground walk. Now, PCs are invariably found in campsites where children are alone with the non-working parent.
Ten years ago, AT&T ran an award-winning series of commercials that asked if anyone had ever done high-tech tasks like typing a budget at the beach, or making a sales call from a mountain top. The tag line for each scenario, delivered by Tom Selleck, was: "You will." Well, most of the "visions" from those commercials have been borne out, becoming an everyday part of modern life. What none of us seemed to realize, however, is that their predictions were not a promise, but a threat.
Connectivity is soaring, both with the introduction of new information services and the geometric rate of their saturation at all levels of society. Sadly, most of us forget that communications technology should provide the potential for greater connectivity, not an obligation to accept it. Cell phones and pagers have forced most technicians to effectively become responsible to their employers 24 hours per day. Wireless computer connections to e-mail and Web resources are threatening to steal the remaining free time of managers and anyone else not yet wired at all times.
A high degree of connectivity can be invaluable. There are people who literally owe their lives to cell phones. Yet the idea of working at all times has insidiously stowed away with the extension of connectivity. A wireless service provider ad describes the advantages of its service as "an opportunity to never lose so much as a moment to inactivity. With [our] wireless network services and modem, you can use your laptop in the lobby of a client's office, or the back of a taxi Š anywhere that you can carry your computer, you can work."
I was tempted to suggest that anyone who cannot close his spreadsheet for the duration of a taxi ride either has outrageous deadlines or a miserable existence. Yet this is becoming the norm among computer users, with wireless modems now turning every laptop or handheld PC into a 24-hour connectivity device. When I travel by airplane, I'm amazed by the number of people willing to use a laptop on a tray table-and by how few carry a book, or any other acknowledgment that they deserve to entertain themselves.
Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter have collaborated to write a fine novel set in the near future, "The Light of Other Days," in which a corporation invents a camera that can spy on any part of the world, and then distributes access to such cameras through the Internet. Of course, the "wormcams" of the book radically alter society when people realize the cameras can be used to see anyone else, and that anyone else can look back as well.
The book strikes many chords with the pervasive spread of the Internet and general computer technology. While no technology can spy so unilaterally, extreme connectivity has a similar effect on people: Many lack the ability to withdraw from its light.
People bemoan the effects of losing children's attention to TV and other electronic entertainment. Another generation is being threatened by electronics, and many willingly succumb out of a sense of commitment to their jobs. If that generation is consumed by connectivity, it will harm their children more than any television could. Even the most wired person needs a regular vacation from the responsibility of answering electronic demands.
Contributing Editor Joe Rudich joe@rudich.com is a network administrator with the St. Paul Companies in St. Paul, Minn.
