Work Wednesday
Fresh on the footsteps of Father's Day weekend, which happily - for my husband - coincided with the beginning of the iPhone 3G S era, The New York Times kicked off the workweek with a little too close to home discourse on smartphone manners. Close to home because my husband and I now have, between us, two BlackBerrys (work-issued), one Treo, and one iPhone. (And we use them a lot.)
The article, describing the phenomenon of heads bowed - not in prayer- in meeting rooms and around conference tables - framed the etiquette issues surrounding smartphones:
Traditionalists say the use of BlackBerrys and iPhones in meetings is as gauche as ordering out for pizza. Techno-evangelists insist that to ignore real-time text messages in a need-it-yesterday world is to invite peril.
Although the Times reported that the "etiquette debate seems to be tilting in the favor of smartphone use," the traditionalist view was more than well-represented on its website. Indeed, the nearly 200 comments were almost unanimous in their condemnation of smartphone users who email,text, surf, game, Twitter, and Facebook their way through meetings. And the rest of life.
Rude, rude, rude, repeated the posters.
Self-important, self-centered, self-absorbed, charged others, using words like "infantile," "toddler," "second childhood," and "kindergarten" in their indictments. (I'm puzzled by the number of references to children. Codewords for our need for instant gratification? Perhaps a clue to the generation gap? For me, they brought to mind the image of my three-year-old son - who loves fruit of all kinds - running around our house pretending to "eat" my 'Berry.)
Others reserved their disapproval for smartphone use that goes way beyond meetings to restaurants, theaters, the kitchen table, and even funerals! One poster (Jeffrey from New York, comment #25) even forecast that constant smartphone use would "empty[] our lives of all quality, meaning and humanity."
I agree with the traditionalists. (Even if I think Jeffrey overstates the case.) But I have to admit that I act with the (so-called) techno-evangelists. I am a BlackBerry abuser.
The merits of the traditionalist view are, to me, not up for debate. Of course, it's rude to tap away while someone else is talking. Smartphones and other communications technologies do enable social distancing that permits us to behave in ways that we wouldn't act in real life. Would you sit in a meeting and read a book or talk on the telephone? No, of course. (But you might doodle or do the crossword puzzle. Here's today's installment. There always have been and always will be distractions for the distractable.)
And constantly using BlackBerry at home, whether for work or fun, does interfere with personal and family time. You can't give your kids your full attention if you're typing while they're talking. (It's OK to do this to your husband, though, if he's just purchased an iPhone 3G S.) The BlackBerry doesn't lend itself to living life in the present moment.
Plus, the techno-evangelical "timeliness" argument doesn't really convince me. It's rare for something to be so urgent that it can't wait until a meeting ends. I know, from my law firm days (now nearly a decade ago) that it's often the lawyer, not the client, that feels the need to be on call 24/7.
Nonetheless, you can often find me glued to my government-issued BlackBerry during meetings large and small, public and private. (One of my colleagues - I'll call him "Z" - does a great impression of me typing and talking at the same time during our weekly 10-person staff meeting.) And I've been known to steal more than a glance at my device while my kids battle in the back of the car - but only when I'm in the passenger seat. I feel guilty - but I do it anyway. Even when I'm chiding my husband (gently, of course) for spending more time playing with his apps than his kids. (Oh well, it is the honeymoon phase.)
So, why do I do it? (Assuming I'm not suffering from a newly-emerging addiction.)
Well, the BlackBerry allows me to "balance" my work life and my home life in a way that wouldn't be possible without it. Mostly, it lets me cram in more work than I actually have time to do on my less-than-full-time but not-exactly part-time mommy-friendly schedule.
I use my BlackBerry for all sorts of working mom multi-tasking functions - from planning conferences to arranging pickups. It lets me communicate with my foreign counterparts during their workdays - sometimes very early in the morning, other times late at night. (The early morning thing works well when your three-year-old routinely rises at 6:00 a.m.) I also leave the office earlier than many of my colleagues do so I use the BlackBerry to deal quickly with minor matters as they come up - without having to stay late or go into the office on my day off. You can argue, as many do, that the Blackberry actually turns work-life balance on its head, blurring the lines between professional and personal time, creating higher expectations of access, and encouraging needless intrusions. All true. But the BlackBerry gives me flexibility, which I prize.
We're going out West on a family vacation next week, and I'll be packing my BlackBerry in my bag. But I promise it will stay there most of the time. As much as I love my Blackberry, I'd still rather shoot rapids than than surf the web - even on my smartphone!
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