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Bound by wireless
Trimming wires with new technology often makes for more connected lives

by holly noe

As part of a well-intentioned drive to promote balance between employees’ professional and personal lives, in 2004 the Ford Motor Company floated the decidedly unusual idea of inviting friends and family in to evaluate workers’ home “performances” as part of their job reviews.

“That’s a horrible idea!” cries Carina Spaulding, 23, an assistant editor and freelance writer. “That would be incredibly awkward–-–that’s like a total invasion.”

Moments later, Spaulding is digging a buzzing phone from her purse, and for a moment, is oblivious to what’s going on around her.

Young professionals struggle to balance their personal and professional lives every day, both aided and impaired by technology like cellular phones and the Internet.

Termed “perpetual contact devices” by researchers, mobile communication and information technologies are facts of life for young professionals, many of whom haven’t used landlines since high school and struggle to recall or imagine how even the most basic tasks got done before the Web. While evolving technologies pose new challenges for maintaining balance between professional and personal life, they also open up new ways to achieve that balance, both through integration and disconnection.

Spaulding edits for Coreweekly, a Madison paper launched in August 2004 that covers news, arts and entertainment for the capital city’s under-30 crowd. She also freelances for Wisconsin Trails magazine, headquartered in Black Earth-––work she says she could not do without the Internet and her mobile phone. “I have 600 minutes a month and I use all of them,” Spaulding says of her constant cellular companion. “The only time it’s turned off is when it runs out of batteries.”

Communication technology allows Spaulding to meld and shift her work and home responsibilities to less rigid hours and locations. She uses the same phone for both jobs, as well as for personal contacts. When not at her desk computer, she’s online wirelessly via a laptop. She fields personal messages during workday downtime, then heads home or to a coffee shop to do freelance work in the evening.

While Spaulding concludes her personal and professional lives are “pretty intertwined,” another young professional just across the city describes his as “pretty separate.”

Tyler Sachse, 25, is a corporate communications specialist at Great Lakes Higher Education, the student loan provider many UW System graduates know more intimately than they would probably like. In his comparatively traditional working situation, Sachse has found using technology to disconnect the personal and professional a more viable option. “I’ve always tried to be somebody who just kind of turns off work when I leave,” Sachse says. “I don’t like to spend time in the evening thinking about work because I’m going to be back there the next day.”

Like Spaulding, Sachse has a personal cell phone instead of a landline for convenience. Unlike Spaulding, Sachse says, “I usually turn my cell phone off when I get to work, then turn it on later and check my voicemail a couple times a day.”

To keep calls from encroaching on his time or privacy, Sachse makes ample use of phone features that allow him some control. For him, being able to easily screen callers lessens the guilt that compels many mobile phone users to pick up anywhere, any time: If a call seems urgent, he’ll answer; if not, he’s confident the caller will leave him a voicemail message.

Still, technologies like cell phones and email clients channel a constant, real-time stream of messages, most of them unimportant, but cumulatively producing a vague anxiety that the next one might be vital. This has led many to comment on the addictive nature of these devices, both in terms of manic checking and constant upgrading. For instance, some tech-junkies have dubbed BlackBerry mobile Internet devices “CrackBerries.”

“I am relatively dependent on having it,” Danny Carlson, 23, an accounting manager at Platinum Systems in Kenosha, says of his BlackBerry. “It definitely gives me an edge.”

Carlson says having a constant email connection and instant, complete access to his data frees up some of his time, for example allowing him to return emails during otherwise unused minutes spent traveling to appointments. “A normal person would have to wait a whole two hours to get that email,” Carlson says. “I can reply back almost instantly.”

Because they permit young professionals to be more available, these technologies raise new questions over just how available employees have to be––or feel they have to be––to succeed. “The lines are much blurrier than they once were,” says Larry Hunter, an employment practices researcher at the UW-Madison School of Business. “But I am not yet convinced that employees who choose not to make themselves available are suffering any more than they used to.”

Much depends on the employer. Annette Novak, 38, who owns and operates a landscape design firm in Waterloo, says she does not expect her employees to be constantly accessible. “You need to be able to concentrate on the task and hand, and constant interruptions do not facilitate efficient, quality work,” she says.

The rise of multitasking has been one of mobile technology’s signatures, leading some to allege it has given America a collective case of Attention Deficit Disorder. Spaulding, however, likes this aspect, noting she routinely keeps several projects open at once on her office computer, surfs online while on the phone or takes advantage of a lazy stroll with her dog to call her sister. “It keeps things from getting boring,” she says.

For many young professionals, disconnecting is not a prime goal. “I think I could if I wanted to,” Carlson says. “But to tell you the truth, there’s a certain part of me that is almost reliant on that. I like that I can be reached at any time. I feel very comfortable.”

Even for those who do try to maintain a wall, the technology makes it inherently tough. When personal and professional emails arrive in separate inboxes, that compulsion to check for the “important stuff” tends to spill over. Neither Spaulding nor Sachse say they feel much pull toward work email after business hours unless they are expecting something, but checking personal email during the workday is part of their respective routines. “Instead of taking one long 20-minute break, I’d rather just check my email every hour for a couple of minutes,” Sachse says.

User responses to new technology have brought other changes to workplace and broader culture. One may be a growing assumption, particularly in places like schools and doctors’ offices, that connected lives are the norm. “People who can’t handle small personal or family matters while at work are getting left behind in some ways,” Hunter says.

Using the same devices for business and pleasure may be economical, but users must be more mindful of things like voicemail messages and ringtones. Technology makes communication between colleagues more efficient, but also gives them new ways to annoy and distract one another.

Sachse says his coworkers commonly take personal cell phone calls at work, yet still seem to assume privacy. “I think we overheard one lady firing her maid one time,” Sachse says. “It makes for some good laughs. It’s more annoying when someone has their phone in their cube and it keeps ringing with some ridiculous jingle.”

When employees arrive at work, many have the added frustration of stepping back in time, chugging along on machines running archaic operating systems. “I wouldn’t mind if we had some newer technology,” Sachse says of Great Lakes. “People our age are very into technology, and the technologies we’re using at home are so much more advanced that what we’re using at work.”

Also, when technologies younger workers initially used to communicate in their private lives cross over to the office, distinctions can get hazy. Take blogs, which companies are now tapping as serious public relations and recruiting tools. Some even require prospective employees to have blogs to get an interview. For younger workers weaned on social blogging sites like Livejournal and MySpace, switching gears to presenting good online face for an employer can be tricky. Spaulding says Coreweekly is toying with adding editor blogs to its website, which she says could be fun, but notes even the most enjoyable activity can soon feel forced, limited and inauthentic when done at a boss’ behest.

Indeed, for all the influence technology has, often the ways employers can most affect their younger workers’ lives don’t involve anything digital. Coreweekly has a young staff from the editor-in-chief on down, with all but two in their 20s and the “old man” clocking in at 34, which Spualding says makes for an accommodating work environment. “I don’t know if it’s for balance or cheapness, but they don’t want you to work more than 40 hours a week,” Spaulding says.

Spaulding, Sachse and Carlson all say they tend to wind up socializing with younger colleagues after business hours as well, which can be a blessing and a curse.

And remember that Ford initiative to bring friends and family into the workplace that terrified Spaulding? For Carlson and Platinum Systems, it’s a partial reality, and he says an all-around success. “We bring personal life into work,” Carlson says. “We bring in family members so everybody can contribute to the company.”

Still, judging by Spaulding’s reaction–“No, no, no!”– if that idea catches on, disconnecting completely may start to look more appealing.

©curb magazine - winter 2005
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