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Could the Interruption Economy Sack Prosperity?
Young Urban Professional
Conventional wisdom says that technology - and nowadays the Internet - will always continue to advance and bring with it productivity gains and prosperity. That's certainly been the case for years. However, historically there are pauses. After the benefits of the Industrial Revolution were fully realized it took awhile for the next big era to begin. I wonder if we're about to enter a similar lull now that the Information Age is arguably almost 30 years old.
Mark Cuban argues that the Internet is now becoming a hinderance to our productivity. Idris Moote makes an even stronger case. He notes that productivity growth has gradually slowed since 2004. Moote cites statistics showing that interruptions from e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging, and blogs take up nearly 30% of each day; on an annualized basis, this represents a loss of 28 billion hours for the entire US workforce.
The United States - and other pockets of the developed world - are hooked on two drugs: information and busyness. As I've written many times, our rush to keep up with inputs can't scale and this may cause a sizable number of people to eventually cut back on info-crack, perhaps drastically.
The runaway success of my good friend Tim Ferriss' book, the Four Hour Workweek, is a direct manifestation of a desire that millions secretly have. If enough people get the willpower to say "enough" then spending on gadgets and time spent online could decline. In a worst case scenario, companies would retrench R&D spending and slow innovation. That's just one possibility of many, of course - and the most extreme (and unlikely).
The X factor here is actually a Y factor - Generation Y. They grew up in an age of information saturation. Gen Y'ers crave what psychiatrist Edward Hallowell calls screen sucking. The Internet is in their veins. They know no other way.
I am hopeful that as every successive generation emerges that never knew a world without the Net, the possibility for such a doomsday scenario decreases. That's not to say there won't be pain however. An informal digital divide has emerged between geeks and those who are blissfully and decidedly low tech. However, it's clear that we need new tools for managing interruptions - and they may not be technological, but social. Our prosperity may depend on it.
Reader Comments (14)
How is this any different? The more sources of information you plug into, the more they have to compete with each other for your attention. And the winners tend to be the cupcakes of communication, instead of the fruits and veggies.
To me Twitter makes sense, but not Facebook; LinkedIn is useful, other tools far less. The blog is my digital home page because it gives me the opportunity to give back in content while learning and growing. I don't log on when I am traveling, I read instead. And I have been caught during the occasional stare at the sky, a landscape and outside the window of my office.
Perhaps we're all still searching for the ultimate productivity tool that fosters what Frans Johansson calls "Intersections" in his book, The Medici Effect.
@JYYOST2: Thanks for the perspective. The younger people I know don't complain of information overload, where those my age and older are overwhelmed by IM, email, RSS, etc. Most people your age will most likely be working in jobs that don't necessarily exist now anyway, so your generation will define what is productive activity and what is not for yourselves.
I also believe that the definition of productivity is rather subjective and will vary depending on who you ask. Productivity and connectivity can be 2 very different things, but then again for most executives they are one and the same.
I also believe that the definition of productivity is rather subjective and will vary depending on who you ask. Productivity and connectivity can be 2 very different things, but then again for most executives they are one and the same.
We need permissions, folks, to be effective not busy. Anyone for the beach?
I don't think that new technology is the problem, more the fact that people haven't yet learned how to use it effectively. For example, I only check my email at work once during the day because otherwise I know someone will be either a) sending a funny forward or b) asking a question that really isn't important. People need to learn the boundary between using technology for work and for pleasure and keep within.
On a seperate note: I'm really interested in seeing what happens when more of our personal space on the Web is monetized and integrated into our work. Our social tools are now used as enterprise tools.