Friends: Real and Imagined

Researchers from the National Opinion Research Center have found that people who watch a lot of television seem to be as psychologically content as people who have many friends. These disappointing findings stem from the fact that "the human brain evolved long before television came along, so subconsciously it recognises any face it sees regularly as a friend, even if it is on the screen," says Satoshi Kanazawa, Ph.D., author of the study. Does this explain why society remains in a stupor of overfed, undernourished, overweight, socially inept citizens? After all they are, indeed, getting their social and psychological strokes by tuning in to see their favorite "friends" each week.

As someone recently noted technology can certainly be an aid to human kind but if we are not careful it can greatly diminish of the quality of our lives. Technology distracts us from our own thought, daydreams, even our own imagination. When we fill in the time from the car to the elevator and the elevator to the office, or from lunch back to the office, with a beeper or cell phone, we interrupt the opportunity for people to marinate in their own imaginations.

Your "Technology Bill of Rights"

Technology puts independent workers in the driver's seat, so to speak. But it can create such dependency, say my pals, Larry Rosen and Michelle Weil, that it may even lead to questioning one's own creativity and capabilities. To keep technology in it's proper perspective, they say to declare your independence.

1. I am the boss, not my technology.
2. Technology is available to help me express my creativity.
3. I decide when to use the tools technology provides.
4. I have the right to choose what technology to use and what to put aside.
5. I can use technology to stay connected, informed, and productive – my way.

6. Technology offers a world of information. I get to choose what information is important to me.
7. Technology will have problems, but I will be prepared to handle them.
8. Technology can work 24-hour days, but I can choose when to begin and when to stop working.
9. Technology never needs to rest, but I do.
10. I can work successfully by enforcing my boundary needs.

Source: Technostress by Larry Rosen Ph.D. and Michelle Weil PhD.

Sane Cell Phone Use

As cell phones take over the earth, it's vital to remember that you control yours, and not vice versa. As often as you possibly can, keep your cell phone off and only use it for making outgoing calls or when you are expecting an important call from someone in particular. You really do not
want to be available to everyone all the time - that's a guarantee you won't even be able to think straight.

Don't freely give out your cell phone number, except to those you actually want to hear from such as loved ones, clients, and prospects. This should be a relatively small universe. If you can live without it, don't put your cell phone number on your business card, and don't advertise that you have one. People can call your office number and be assured that calls will be returned in a reasonable amount of time.

"Public" Discourse and Disclosure

A report from the Associated Press is distressing. "We're the YouTube Generation, living in the YouTube Era, in a YouTube World. And now we apparently have a YouTube Divorce. Some
prominent New York divorce lawyers couldn't think of another case where a spouse -- in this instance, the wife of a major Broadway theater operator -- had taken to YouTube to spill the secrets of a marriage in an apparent effort to gain leverage and humiliate the other side."

"This is absolutely a new step, and I think it's scary," said Bonnie Rabin, a divorce lawyer who has handled high-profile cases. "People used to worry about getting on page six of the New York Post, the gossip page. But this? It brings the concept of humiliation to a whole new level."

Jeff's take: if only it would stop here. From high school beatings, to beheadings, to crime sprees, to what have you, the level of public discourse and disclosure is taking some severe and sordid turns. Should we all now tread as if candid camera is lurking around every corner?

Pervasive Technology Overload

Here is a timely article that ran on 200 NBC TV news affiliates on the growing phenomena of something we all face, technology overload.

The news story is accompanied by a short video: once you're on the NBC site, click on the little red camera to the right of the screen.

Draining Your Brain

David Brook, writing in the New York Times, offers a brilliant article called "The Outsourced Brain," wherein he describes how today's technology is aiding some people in abdicating from everyday decisions, and worse, even from basic thinking.

"The gurus seek bliss amidst mountaintop solitude and serenity in the meditative trance," he writes, "but I, grasshopper, have achieved the oneness with the universe that is known as pure externalization.

"I have melded my mind with the heavens, communed with the universal consciousness, and experienced the inner calm that externalization brings, and it all started because I bought a car with a G.P.S."

"Like many men, I quickly established a romantic attachment to my G.P.S. I found comfort in her tranquil and slightly Anglophilic voice. I felt warm and safe following her thin blue line. More than once I experienced her mercy, for each of my transgressions would be greeted by nothing worse than a gentle, Make a U-turn if possible.”

"After a few weeks, it occurred to me that I could no longer get anywhere without her. Any trip slightly out of the ordinary had me typing the address into her system and then blissfully following her satellite-fed commands. I found that I was quickly shedding all vestiges of geographic knowledge."

Wasting the Most Precious Gift

Laura Cohen, a Wall Street Journal reader, in a letter to the editor writes, "How pitiful that people choose to spend the precious gift of time on virtual-reality games (Ref: "Is This Man Cheating on His Wife?" WSJ, Weekend Journal). I was troubled by this story all weekend. There are so many genuine needs of the community for people with so much spare time. Imagine what benefits could come from taking all that energy and using it to improve the world instead of indulging in behavior that is destructive to the family."

It would be hard to find a statement with which I agree more than Laura's.

TV Isolates Us from Each Other

Robert Putnam, Ph.D. Harvard professor of public policy and author of "Bowling Alone," says, "For most of the 20th century, Americans were becoming more connected with family and friends, and there was more giving of blood and money, and all of those trend lines turn sharply in the middle '60s and have gone in the other direction ever since,"

Quoted in the Washington Post, he says, "Americans go on 60 percent fewer picnics today and families eat dinner together 40 percent less often compared with 1965, he said. They are less likely to meet at clubs or go bowling in groups. Putnam has estimated that every 10-minute increase in commutes makes it 10 percent less likely that people will establish and maintain close social ties."

"Television is a big part of the problem, he contends. Whereas 5 percent of U.S. households in 1950 owned television sets, 95 percent did a decade later."

On the PC Again, Dear?

Demetria Gallegos, writing in the Denver Post Staff, says that a new study indicates that most people spend more time with technology than they do with their family. A survey conducted by Kelton Research, and commissioned by www.support.com, a site that offers tech support found that 65% of respondents spent more time with a computer than with their spouse or significant other.

More than 80 percent of those polled said they were more dependent on their computer than they were three years ago. The survey was conducted in December and January, involving 1001 participants nationwide.

Manage Cell Phone Use or Else

A study published in the "Journal of Marriage and Family" finds that cell phone and pager use has become a vehicle for job worries and problems to interfere with family life for both men and women. Cell phone technology is linked to increased psychological distress and lower family satisfaction in general for working men and women.

Upshot: Manage your cell phone after hours or it will quickly manage you.

The All-in-One Device Emerges

Apple announced the iPhone at its annual Macworld expo. Steve Jobs called the iPhone a "revolutionary mobile phone" that will feature an iPod, phone and "Internet communicator."

Been Kicking Your PC?

This doesn’t say much for customer service: 85% of consumers report that they've “sworn, shouted, cried, smashed things, or experienced chest pains while waiting for help on tech-support call lines,” based on a survey conducted by Harris Interactive for RightNow Technologies. To create Breathing Space during such aggravating wait time, put your phone on “speaker phone” and have other easy-to-complete tasks ready to tackle.

The Right Tools, for the Right Job

Jerry Gitchel, president of Make Technology Work, explains the right tools for the right jobs for staying in touch with customers and associates.

* Instant Messaging from a computer or cell phone is best for a quick answer to a specific question.

* Telephone - best when used to brainstorm with others and for providing feedback on emotion and tone. It lacks the ability to archive or easily share info with a third party.

* Email - best for frequent non-urgent communications if you remember that they are not private. Easy to forward, lasts forever.

* The web - best when used to publish timeless information as desired, for current or future customers or associates.

* Audioconference - best for realtime communication and collaboration, enhanced when used with web-based documents.

* Online conferences - best when you need to add video capability to a group event. Lacks continuity between separate events.

* Online collaboration - best when used to create a comprehensive project management solution requiring document management, web publishing and/or support data, including images and video.

Boob Tube U.S

Got Breathing Space? An AP newswire report indicates that he average American home now has more televison sets than people. That threshold was crossed within the past two years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said. Half of American homes have three or more TVs, and only 19 percent have just one, Nielsen said. In 1975, 57 percent of homes had only a single set and 11 percent had three or more, the company said.

Who Could Be Calling Now?

Marc Marchal, 32, was killed in 2003 when his motorbike collided with a tractor near his home town of Rochefort, Belgium. Because of the nature of his injuries, the undertakers advised his family that the coffin should remain closed.

As the family and mourners gathered for a private farewell they fell into a shocked silence, then fled the room when they heard a cellphone ringing from within the sealed coffin. The undertakers failed to notice a cell phone in the deceased's pants pocket.

A Nation of Fitful sleepers

I recently revisited an article from a few years back on the prevalence of sleep disorders in our society. As communication technology grows ever more powerful, and people are more likely to abuse rather than effectively use technology, what are the chances that sleep disorders will decline? Where is the Breathing Space?:

“Poll finds sleep disorders on the rise in U.S.”
April 2, 2002

(CNN) -- A poll on the sleeping habits of U.S. residents released Tuesday found the number of Americans reporting trouble sleeping is on the rise, as is the number of people who use medications to help get some shuteye. The latest "Sleep in America" poll, commissioned by the National Sleep Foundation, found that respondents were getting average of 6.9 hours of sleep on weekdays and 7.5 hours on the weekend.

Seventy-four percent of respondents in the study reported experiencing at least one symptom of a sleep disorder a few nights a week or more. That number was up significantly from 62 percent in 1999 and 2000, and from 69 percent last year. Those symptoms include difficulty falling asleep, waking up a lot during the night, waking up too early and not being able to go back to sleep, waking up feeling unrefreshed, snoring, having tingling feelings in the legs, or pauses in breathing.

Pollsters found that 68 percent of respondents were getting less than eight hours of sleep on weeknights and that they sought to make up for it on the weekend, when 52 percent said they got eight hours of sleep or more. Respondents noted that not getting enough sleep made them feel more irritable, more likely to lose their patience around children, and to get angry while driving.

Meanwhile, the number of people who reported using medication to help them fall asleep was also on the rise. Fifteen percent of people surveyed said they had used either a prescription or over-the-counter drug for sleep, up from 11 percent in 2001.

The poll found that men, on average, got less sleep than women, though women were more likely to report symptoms of insomnia than men. On average, people between the ages of 18 and 29 got the least amount of sleep, while those 65 or over got the most. Adults living with children got less sleep that those without children. And people in the Western U.S. got the most sleep each day, while residents of the Midwest and Northeast slept the least.

U.S. Statistics, 1904

The average life expectancy is 47 years.

14% of homes have a bathtub.

8% of homes have a telephone.

A three-minute call from Denver to New York cost $11.

There are 8,000 cars in the U.S. and 144 miles of paved roads.

The maximum speed limit in most cities is 10 miles per hour.

With a 1.4 million residents, California is the 21st most populous state.

Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee are each more heavily
populated than California.

Population Woes

On a daily basis, the ever-increasing world population seemingly has little impact on our lives. After all, even though the world gains a million people every four days, what impact does it have on us if 99% of them are in India, or Asia or Africa? Yet, more people every day, in every society, all the time, in our fast-paced, high-tech society predictably yields higher levels of isolation, alienation, loss of identity, and even abhorrent behavior.

Population growth in a fast-paced world translates into more of everything in every direction. Allow me to explain: more brilliant students in school, more utterly hopeless students. More books, more plays, more movies, more philosophy, newer religions, cult groups and those at war with society. More noble thoughts, more deviant thoughts, more channel noise. A smorgasbord of information and entertainment, unprecedented in the history of the earth. Yet we each have a harder time focusing on reliable, verifiable information, and on high quality, socially redeeming, socially rewarding entertainment amidst the bland, the low brow, or the utterly vulgar.

As the U.S. population climbs to 300 million, from a benchmark 160 million in 1960, with it comes more roads, more buildings, more housing development, new zoning, new restrictions, more government, new ways to tax, and more bureaucracy. Everywhere you look, predictably more regulations, witness more forms signed by school children in order to participate in class, sports, extracurricular activities, field trips, and even volunteer opportunities.

More people on less land means predictable appreciation in real estate values. More chasing after the same economic goods. A rise in collectibles from the historic and magnificent to the recent and absurd. Greater levels of materialism and among many, the quest for greater spirituality.

The mathematics of population growth is unknown to most, spectacular to a few, and in most respects, a mystery to everyone. The Indonesian tsunami of December 26, 2004 ultimately claimed 150,000 to 160,000 lives. World population growth (live births - deaths) adds 150,000 to 160,000 people every 16 hours, in a day a quarter million people, and in a month more than seven million to the earth.

In two decades, at least six of the seven million born this month will be clamoring for jobs, some for enough to eat, some for higher education, and many for some the illusive and fleeting notion of cosmic or social justice.

The Most Hated Technology

The 2003 annual Lemelson-MIT invention index survey found that when asked to name the invention they hate the most but can't live without, 30 percent of respondents said the cell phone. Second to the cell phone were alarm clocks at 25 percent, followed by television at 23 percent and razors at 14 percent.