| I went to a big conference where I was introduced by the chairman like this: “Welcome everybody. Lovely to have you all here; now we can all look at our screens together.”
In the past, it used to be considered rude to have your laptop on during meetings and answer emails whilst somebody was presenting. It was rude but tolerated. Now there are fewer laptops on the table, but people are looking down at their phones. ‘Homo Erectus’ is being replaced by ‘Homo Thumbing ‘, which is an illuminated Homo-Looking-Down.
I have run client meetings with apocalyptic warnings against doing this and descriptions upfront of the consequences (from being put on the spot by me, including CEOs, to paying a nominal fine to buy the beers in the evening). Everybody complies at the beginning. By the end of the first day, trespassers are apparent. By the second day, everybody ignores the warning and looks down again, thumbing with an apparent vengeance.
There is an issue here of etiquette, politeness and respect that is big enough. But even more significant is the issue of busyness and the apparent inevitability of answering a trivial message on the spot. Our hyper-connected world has given us enormous possibilities but also a new Ego Archetype that reads like this: ‘What we say, surely, must be incredibly important for many people; to say it immediately is paramount, and if we don’t live in an instant reaction mode, instant thinking, instant presence, instant action, (perhaps not instant coffee), there is something wrong with us’. Why do we react and reply to the command of a beep of the smartphone? Because we can.
“The big issue is the busyness and the apparent inevitability of answering a trivial message on the spot.”
Human interaction is being digitally re-defined every single day in millions of places. I don’t have a good answer, but what are we, human beings, losing? I know it may be a naïve question but the way ‘business’ dictates our everyday lives bothers me. |