Source: Being a Digital/Analog Leader

Let’s start with a quote I feel summarizes this article:

“I say this because I hear how technology can be dehumanizing — like the exasperating interaction you get with a phone tree when calling up your insurance agent. And I hear how technology makes our lives more fulfilling — for a CEO who wouldn’t be able to attend his daughter’s soccer game if it weren’t for their mobile phone/office. My only conclusion is that we are coming to terms with the hybrid lifestyle we’ve chosen with technology.”

This contains everything I identify with that relates to technology.  Does it invade my life?  Does it make me less personal?  Does it help me connect more? Does it free time?  I’ve asked these questions and had conversations with friends and family about this numerous time, but only recently realized that the development of technology has been a reaction/solution to a changing culture just as much as it has driven that culture change.

We can stop arguing about whether this is good or bad.  Culture has shifted from 40 hour work weeks and separate work and life portions to 60-70 hour work weeks and a constant work/life blend.  Being quite young I can’t say what changed what, but I know that in many instances I have only implemented technology to solve a problem caused by work invading home or life getting in the way of work.

Example

Freshly out of college I took a job working as a web designer for a group of radio stations. The Friday before Easter I accidentally (and embarrassingly) erased three months of work including a large project that was supposed to launch the next week.  If I was on a 40 hour schedule and work/life separation I could have argued with merit that it was what it was (back ups weren’t being done like they should have by IT) and that a single errant keystroke was no reason to come in on the weekend.  Business culture dictated that I needed to do what I had to do to get it done. Thankfully I was able to implement a VPN solution and work from home and merge that with time with my family.  In this case the VPN solution didn’t cause me to start working from home it allowed me to meet the demands of work while still maintaining some of my holiday.

This argument sounds eerily similar to the quote above, but what I find wrong with how people view technology’s force on our life. People act like technology is controlling culture and then our actions, but in equal portion culture controls our actions and we implement technology to try and retain our humanity. It is time we stop acting like we don’t control our lives, our boundaries and our future and start saying “Just because technology allows me to do something, doesn’t mean I always have to bend that way.”  Maeda’s assessment of the current cultural situation is correct I just think the assimilator isn’t as much technology as it is business.