"How long can you be happy with someone who is never there?" asks technology-reflectivist Peter de Jager in a Danish article on the effects of the e-mail and mobile phone on people's (working) lives. The fact that you can always be reached by your work via e-mail or mobile phone means that you are never off-work.He says: what happens to family life if mum spends little Otto's birthday checking e-mails or Sunday morning driving dad to work because he has been summoned there via mobile? What has gone wrong when people feel it is ok to asnwer the mobile in the middle of an important conversation - or in the cinema? - Clearly I can see de Jagers point and I think it might be a good idea, as he suggests, to enforce a compagny culture in which there is, in fact, a clear division between when people is at work and off-work. He himself got rid of his mobile phone 3 years ago and refuses be available via phone or email when he is out traveling. But when that is said, I must admit, that I like the flexibility of life which the mobile phone and e-mail have provided me with. I like the fact that I can sit here in Norway and feel secure knowing that my family can always and immediately reach me via the mobile if my mum is taken ill. That my friends in Denmark can send me encouraging sms's on a Sunday when I'm feeling low. That though I have spent several months away from Denmark, via e-mail I am up-to-date with the most important events in the lives of my friends and family - and also aware of all the political decisions which have been made on my workplace and communicated to the employers via e-mail continously. Let us not forget that it is not technology in itself that is inherently bad, it is the way we use it and the cultures we build around it that changes our lives.
- See also my post about the conference on mobile cultures in Finland.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:51