The Culture of Connectivity
We often find that our cellphones are an integral part of our daily success. When they aren’t nearby, cortisol spikes and panic ensues. We’ve built such an immense dependence on our phones that we can rarely go more than ten minutes without them, but research shows that this relationship is likely a very unhealthy one. The famous 2020 documentary, The Social Dilemma, addressed this topic in depth. Many of the main speakers in this piece were also interviewed by Anderson Cooper for more information. One of the most notable is Tristan Harris, a former Google product manager.
Harris is known for his criticism of email. He found that it was highly detrimental to real-life connections and overly distracting. He is not the only person to acknowledge this, however. In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport discusses the constant wave of notifications from cellphones and how “these trends actively decrease one’s ability to go deep.” Unfortunately for those who wish to think deeper, many workplaces are moving toward popular trends that only increase distractions. The three main trends are open floor plans, instant messaging, and a push for employees to maintain a presence on social media.
While these foster ways to make employees more consistently connected, they also encourage constant interruptions in concentration. Such intense levels of connectivity bring employees to the mindset that they must answer messages at any moment and begin to harbor the feelings that their jobs will crumble if they do not. Newport identifies this as the “culture of connectivity.” While it may seem true that the most successful people in their fields are the most available to those who need them, this is not true because it goes against the fundamentals of deep work. Spending so much time doing tasks such as answering emails takes away from their ability to concentrate and consumes time at work when they should be doing more important aspects of their jobs.
I have found this concept to be true for myself as well. While I use email somewhat infrequently, after looking at my screen time records, I have found that I spend more time texting than I would have ever imagined. At an average of an hour and six minutes every day, I have finally found one of the holes into which my time disappears. What seems to me to be a quick text here and there adds up at an alarming rate.
By only allowing a certain amount of time each day to respond to emails and texts, productivity can be increased dramatically. While this seems simple enough in theory, it will likely be hard to put to work because of how attached we are to our phones.
