Both our workplace and our personal lives have undergone, and are undergoing, a revolution brought about by a silicone chip much smaller than the nail on your little finger. There is a famous Chinese curse that says, "May you live in interesting times." The technological changes sweeping through our lives are so interesting and so far reaching and so fast paced, I can perhaps be forgiven for wondering at times if that curse hasn't been laid on us.
Think about it. In Canada 57.6% of workers suffer the effects of job related stress. 53% of women and 41% of men report stress overwhelming. Stress cost the Canadian economy $16 Billion and the US economy $200 Billion in the year 2000. 71% of workers in the US have been the victims of "desk rage".
In 1999, 63 milion people were connected to the internet; today it is over 400 million! The world is producing more information each year than in the previous five milleniums. Each edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average 16th century person would encounter in a lifetime. More than 1000 website are launched each day; and the average person struggles to cope with 178 messages a day (voice mail, telephone, pages, fax and e-mail). Indeed we each spend on average 302 hours a year listening to voicemail and answering pages.
In simpler times, I had two sets of security codes to remember: my home computer internet access code and the automatic teller machine (ATM) at my bank. At last count I now have 15 different security codes--2 voice mail, 3 bank codes (ATM, telephone and computer), 3 e-mail codes, 3 computer software codes, 4 internet program codes, 1 building access code and even 1 washroom door code!
In almost every survey ever done on the subject of stress, change over which we have little or no control is always identified as one of the prime generators of distress. The same holds true for the Hi-Tech revolution, a juggernaut over which not even Bill Gates has much control. The stresses associated with the Hi-Tech revolution are basically two fold in nature. They are a consequence of some flaw in the technology (or in the software for that technology) or they are a consequence of some block within us preventing us from successfully integrating appropriate new technological advances into our lives.
Lets begin with a look at the technology itself.
Cell Phones for example, give us the freedom to stay in touch no matter where we are. If your car stalls down one of the back roads of a rough neighborhood, help is but a speed dial call away. But cell phone signals are forever cutting out and their batteries love depleting in the middle of important conversations. Cell phones also give others the ability to get in touch with us no matter where we are or what we are doing or how unnecessary an intrusion such a call may be. Cell phones both improve and frustrate our lives.
Computers have insinuated themselves into almost every crevice of our lives. They monitor and analyze the major systems of our cars, airplanes, homes and office buildings, financial institutions and communication tools. They are the store house for the world's data and the backbone behind the inter and intranets. In the public mind they are associated with vast speed and phenomenal memory; however, for anyone who has worked on them, they take much longer to input data at the front end and are subject to all manner of power interruptions and software flaws. And finding all that data you know is in there (somewhere!) has become one of the world's major time consumers and sources of frustration.
Voice Mail allows for more comprehensive messages to be left, allows for more personal messages, frees up receptionists for other work, is a boon to small business who cannot afford people to staff a telephone, gives people the freedom to roam and accomplish without fear of missing important calls. But, it makes for very frustrating and annoying times wasted accessing any complex institution, listening to options, none of which seem to be the one you want, without ever knowing if your message got through or if you even remembered to leave your name or phone number.
Fax Machines never go on strike, never take two weeks to deliver a letter next door and never require you to walk a block in the rain to find the nearest mailbox. But you never know who's on the receiving end of the fax, what quality of copy they will receive and like all machines do breakdown just when you need them the most. And telemarketers just love running through all our paper supplies with their unrequested and unappreciated "Special Offers".
Bank Machines were a way to avoid lengthy line ups and noisy tellers, they give you the freedom to do your banking at a time convenient to you. Unfortunately there are now lengthy line ups at most bank machines and bank machines are able to do something no bank would ever dream of doing: they can run out of money and shut down just as you get your turn at the machine!
Personal Organizers can hold enormous amounts of information, are small and convenient and can be carried with you wherever you go. But they are expensive, their tiny screens can only display a limited amount of data and retrieving that data take about 5 times as long as looking it up in the average diary.
While acknowledging the benefits of the new technologies, they also have inherent flaws that will be frustrating to anyone who tries to use them.
But lets now turn from the inadequacies of the technology to looking at the problems we bring to that technology. There are basically 7, what I call Faulty Defaults, we bring to the technology. A default in software terms is the starting point, the place the program returns to each time we visit. These are some of the default positions people commonly return to after each encounter with the new technologies.
THE INCOMPATIBLE INTERFACE DEFAULT This is probably the most common and these people tend to regard themselves as "Technophobics". Often having been traumatized by failing to set the clock on the VCR, these individuals are certain they will be incapable of successfully dealing with modern H-Tech world of computers, faxes, cell phones etc. Their experience with the new technologies is usually very limited and just thinking about these new tools is intimidating. Their stance is the very definition of a "self-fulfilling prophesy".
THE OVERLOAD DEFAULT On the other hand, the overwhelmed have had all too much experience with these technologies but have usually been inadequately trained, supported or prepared or are trying to make outdated hardware service cutting edge software. These people live on the verge of exhaustion just thinking about multiple pass codes they need to remember, the extra time it takes at the front end of the digital interface, the new language they need to learn, the new system always coming on-line etc...
THE SYSTEM CRASH DEFAULT The opposite of those on overload, these are the cheerleaders of the digital revolution for whom the reality of the silicone world dramatically fails to meet their inflated expectations. And who become even more depressed as those with next to no interest in the technology gain access to their knowledge base and their expertise becomes common place.
THE LEADING EDGE DEFAULT For whom being on the leading edge of technological advance is a must. These are the people motivated by fear, living in a constant race to be in the vanguard of the new technology, ignoring escalating expenses and certain that their competitors are about to make the next important breakthrough ahead of them.
THE MURPHY'S LAW DEFAULT Mistrusting the technology, and usually having experienced embarrassing software crashes early on, these are the people who take an adversarial stance toward the new technologies viewing them as monsters just waiting to screw everything up. They firmly believe in Murphy's Law, that technology will crash and at the worst possible moment. They also believe in Murphy's Addendum, that it is always the worst possible moment. They tend to build in so many safeguards that there is little time left to do the work.
THE I ROBOT DEFAULT This is the fear of being replaced by machines, concerned that we are mindlessly creating our own obsolescence. Or the fear that our primary interaction will now be with machines, mechanizing us and costing us our humanity.
THE BLURRING DEFAULT The disappearing boundary between work and home as lap tops, voice mail, cell phones, pagers and e-mail make work available to us around the clock. These people have come to believe there is no safe haven from the demands of the marketplace, nowhere to call their own.
This has been an exploration of the nature of the problem. For what can be done to find the delete key for much of hi-tech stress, see part two.
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(c) BER Fraser msw,rsw. Quote or reprint permitted only with attribution and, if on-line, with appropriate link.