Being in the Moment

I have never really bonded with my mobile phone. It seems to me a poor extension of my laptop. I particularly hate it when it rings which, frankly, it does rarely because I have not given the phone number out widely, and because my friends know it is some distance from me, most likely at the bottom of my bag or in a coat pocket. By contrast, I am deeply attached to my ipad and have it with me almost constantly. I check my email obsessively and tend to all the alerts and messages generated by the various apps and social media platforms. I keep papers for meetings and can access my calendar with all the notes on my rather complex work schedule. It is invaluable.

The problem is, in many meetings, that I am prey to the temptation to 'look down, not up'. The technology is pulling me out of the context, the meeting I am in, into another space. This is not an original observation, many social commentators have remarked upon the substitution of what they deem an ersatz virtual experience for a real one.

This phenomenon is clearly not just about the workplace, but it is there I would like to focus. Give a scientific presentation for instance and a majority of the attendees will be staring at the device on their laps, a few using it to support the talk, following up on terms they do not understand, many more checking email or facebook. We clearly have to find our way out of the situation and we need practical strategies for addressing it, not rhetoric or finger wagging.

We will, I think, only achieve this if we start with a degree of honesty. This is a problem for all users of mobile technology including ourselves, it is not simply about students or young people. It is a problem where the advantages of technology will need to be traded off against the disadvantages. We will need in particular to recognise that meeting a demand for connectivity and responsiveness comes at a price and attentiveness is part of that price. There may be threshold effects where we can afford to 'leak' attention - up to a point at which the engagement in the 'here and now' drops rapidly away. Technology may well be going in the 'wrong' direction, in this specific regard, toward greater ubiquity, mobility and immersion, presenting us with yet more potent challenges. The Google glass and associated controversy exemplifies this.

I am not clear that I know the way ahead. Social practice can be very flexible and creative. We may find ways to appropriate the technology to support attention and engagement. In the interim however, we need to do something. Awareness raising comes first but is dangerously close to the rhetoric I argued we should eschew. To a certain extent individuals can change although we should not underestimate the practical challenge. One way to think about this is as a question of etiquette and collective frameworks of conduct, but if so we will need to look more broadly at our rising social expectations of constant availability which drive the behaviour.