Information technology such as the Internet and cellphones are usually seen as making daily interactions between people more efficient. The irony is that these technologies are adding to our already stressful lives by demanding more and more of our attention; intruding into our work and personal lives in ways that many may find unmanageable.
Our social life is now determined on how contactable we are: we do not turn our cellphones off day or night and we can see when the person we wish to contact is online when logging in to our preferred online communication tool. Today, the immediacy of communications is both the blessing and bane of our daily lives.
The Internet and cellphones have only been widely used in this country for about 10 years, yet both of these information technologies already play a crucial part in business and social relationships, in many ways shaping how we communicate - via e-mail, Skype, instant chat, Facebook, voice calls or sending SMS messages - and the expectation that we are always contactable.
Keeping pace
All technological advances impact on the societies in which they occur. We are still coming to terms with how information technology has, and continues to, rapidly change how we communicate. This means we live in a world not of constant change but of accelerating change - and too much change in too short a period of time results in stress.
Take for example the idea of the erosion of authority. In the past, children would learn technical know-how from their parents. Today, many parents are out of touch in terms of the technologies used by their children or are introduced to new communication devices by their children. This can create a sense of insecurity among older generations who begin to feel increasingly more and more out of touch with the world of the younger generation.
The MXit mobile chat phenomena functions in this way, providing teenagers with a medium to communicate that is largely outside the ken of their parents. This challenges parental authority by creating a social space that excludes parents and raises parental anxieties about how this technology is changing the social habits and safety of their children.
It takes society a while to establish suitable norms in the use of new technologies. Technologies such as cellphones, mobile messaging and social networking have not been around long enough for social rules to be established. Due to the lack of these norms and the fact that communication technologies are constantly evolving, we inadvertently open ourselves up to situations that can become stressful. We feel stressed because we have less control over the way we communicate.
Mobile mindset
Technologies such as cellphones, mobile messaging and social networking have not been around long enough for social rules to be established.
Dr Pieter Streicher is MD of BulkSMS.com.
Adapting to new technologies does not necessarily mean that the way we used to behave in relation to older technologies has changed. We still use landlines yet the increased use of the cellphone means we can be contactable when not at our desk or at home. Yet, we still rely on the social expectations applicable to older fixed-line technologies when taking cellphone calls and this can cause unnecessary stress.
In the fixed-line era, people were compelled to answer all phone calls and answer these quickly. If you wanted to contact someone at home, they basically had six rings to answer the call, or risk missing an important communication. As people were typically only at home in the evenings, they would make time for phone calls and would almost always be in a position to take a call.
Applying this mindset in the mobile era can be stressful as there are many situations where taking a call would be inappropriate, disruptive or unsafe - for instance, taking a call during a dinner appointment, during a meeting, or when driving a car. The other side of the coin is that answering a cellphone in public means you intrude into the social space of anybody within earshot.
Managing what takes our attention is one of the greatest challenges of the mobile era; seeking quality of life may mean we take some time out from being constantly available. Before the Internet and cellphones, we structured our lives so that we were contactable at certain times and not others. Maybe we need to review how dependent we have become on communication technologies for our sense of personal well-being.
Beating stress
Technology stress can be reduced by adopting the habits mentioned below. Chat rooms, social networking sites and e-mail communications all follow some form of netiquette providing guidelines to how people should interact. Unlike the online world, cellphone etiquette is still found wanting. One reason for this is that we still apply a fixed-line mindset to the use of cellphones.
Cellphones should be viewed differently from fixed-line phones and we can introduce new habits to limit the social intrusion of a call, or manage the demands that cellphones place on our attention.
* Decide on set times where your cellphone will be on silent, or even off, to prevent work from spilling over into homes, or vice versa.
* Replace a cellphone call with an SMS message as it is less intrusive and gives the recipient an opportunity to reply or call back when convenient.
* Enable the "Silent" setting on your cellphone in public places or open offices spaces to reduce the noise from ringtones or message alerts.
* Use SMS like a pager as SMS is an unobtrusive way to get hold of a person as there is no immediate compulsion to reply to the SMS. If a cellphone is turned off, the SMS will be delivered shortly after it is switched on.
* Use SMS as a notepad and request callers to SMS the required details after the call.
* Change voicemail greetings to include: "Don't leave a message, rather SMS me." This removes the need to write down details while listening to messages. Furthermore, scrolling through SMS messages is much quicker than listening to many voicemail messages.
* Dr Pieter Streicher is MD of BulkSMS.com.
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