Posted on 05/26/2013 3:16:47 PM PDT by upchuck
It [Memorial Day] would seem an ideal time to take a break, but our ability to unplug and relax is under assault. A three-day weekend? We can barely get through three waking hours without working, new research shows. The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensationor even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors' questions...
"It's like an arms race everything is an emergency," said Tanya Schevitz, spokeswoman for Reboot, an organization trying help people unplug more often. "We have created an expectation in society that people will respond immediately to everything with no delay. It's unhealthy, and it's unproductive, and we can't keep going on like this."
There's a long list of horribles associated with our new, always-on-digital lives: You are dumber. You are more stressed. You are losing sleep, and more depressed...
"Many of us have an exaggerated sense of our own importance," she said, speaking on the eve Memorial Day weekend. "I can tell you that come Tuesday morning, the Earth will still be revolving, whether you have checked your email or not..."
"I think that a three-day weekend provides a unique opportunity for people to unplug and decompress because there is a tradition of people going away. So the expectation by the boss that you will be reachable at a moment's notice is likely to be less," she said. "I do think there's hope. When people are given achievable steps, they start seeing that there's a difference."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
That is how cell phones work at my house too, but we have to go about 2 miles for service...I keep threatening to do away with the landline- then pure heaven.
There's an app for that. It deducts 0 dollars from your welfare check
We keep our landline because of the high fire danger here, so we can be alerted if necessary.
We have messaging blocked on our phones.
My wife and I don’t find more than 3 or 4 times a month to contact each other before we get home.
Smart phones are stupid!
“I see people wandering around the store...” and the workplace and every other dang place. I was trying to navigate the downtown area of a large city not long ago. Everybody had a cell phone plastered to their ear or looking down texting. Nobody was paying attention to the walk/don’t walk signs.
“It was if a third person was sitting at the table”. Ain’t that the truth. That is a huge annoyance as well.
I don’t think I’m that important, I guess.
Rantin’ along with ya.
I work in manufacturing out on the floor. If there is a problem with a product or a shortage with a part, I am expected to email the person responsible for ordering that part immediately. That person is less than 60 feet from the production floor. I am expected to check my email at least twice every 30 minutes...even though the emails are from persons within that 60 feet of me. For anyone to actually walk out on to the production floor from the office to review a problem is just simply not done.
We have NO working managers. Only ones that sit on their butts and have meetings with free catered food, drinks and two hour lunches during a day that lasts 8 hours for them.
Overtime is a no-no during the week, but we are expected to work at least 6 hours of overtime on Saturdays. Salaried personal are gone on the weekend, so if there is a problem I am expected to use my phone to text the appropriate persons about the problem.
I hear you. If I really got to ranting on this I'd prolly be kicked off FR forever :)
Suffice it to say I feel cell phones, social networking (especially Facebook) and this "always on" desire are some of the worst things to come along in a long time. This is damaging our country. I wonder sometimes if all this was designed by Satan.
PP leases our ride on the Verizon(spit) network, so same coverage at about 10% of what I used to pay the Verizon thieves.
Unless this LG clam dies beforehand, I'll not be in the market for a new phone unless it has that dandy transporter thingy that Spock and the boys use.
Egggzellent tag !
I'd laugh and set up an auto-reply function... saying that I only check my e-mail at prescribed times because I'm busy, you know, working (say every 3hrs and before quitting-time) -- but be careful to actually read the e-mails at those times.
Thank you. The remote possibility that might be happening totally pisses me off big time!
You didn't deck them, or berate them, or drop their phone in your pocket saying "if you're going to be with me be with me" -- I'm impressed.
(PS -- I'm of the opinion we'd have a much more polite society if people would deck those who don't value the effort of being present with them enough to put the thing down/away when with someone else.)
Dr Spock destroyed 4 generations of childern and before the bastard died he admited he was totally wrong.
I think he meant the Vulcan character... from Star Trek.
Now I am completely mobile and can work just as effectively from an airport in LA - or on the beach - as I can from my Boston area office.
To me, that's freedom.
ps: remote possibility high likelihood
I don’t know who that is!
Still cell-phone free, and will die that way. No blackberry, i-Pod or any of that crap...just have no use for it.
Yeah, the pointy-eared one, not the pointy-headed one
Well, yes it would, because it's all about them, you see. It's just a total self-centeredness and lack of consideration.
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