The Need To Be Always Connected

from the work,-personal...-connect-me... dept

Thu, Jan 15th 2004 10:44am — Mike Masnick

Not all that much new in this CNN article about how many people who travel for work are increasingly investigating the wireless options necessary to keep them in touch. If anything, it shows that the wireless industry isn't going to fade away any time soon. More interesting, though, is how these wireless technologies blur the line of "work life" and "personal life" even more. For a while, people were complaining that they were working both at home and at the office. With wireless technologies, they can be "working" from anywhere - at any time. While some hate this idea, I wonder if it will give more incentive to people to find jobs that they enjoy doing. If it's enjoyable, it's not so much of a pain if you're doing it all the time. Much more likely, though, is that we'll (finally!) develop better technologies for separating work and personal life - so that mundane work related emails and voicemails will simply be held over until we're back at work (though, emergency messages will go through).

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Mark, 16 Jan 2004 @ 9:25am

work/home
In a competitive environment, isn't it much more likely that the good jobs will go to people who are willing to be on call 24/7? Even the impression that being always available to work *might* improve the impression you make on your boss will be enough to convince most people to abandon any pretense of a private life that is distinct from their professional lives. And the Type A folks will absolutely relish the opportunity to display the fact that they're so important, their boss calls them at midnight! Either way it works out that more and more of our lives are dedicated to jobs which, as a direct consequence, provide us with less and less satisfaction.
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