Tag: technology

Pulling the Plug

Thirty years ago, the S. C. Johnson Company introduced a new member of their Glade line of fragrance products called the “PlugIn”. Maybe you have one in your bathroom. The PlugIn uses a small amount of electricity to warm up scented oil, which slowly diffuses into the nearby air. You can even get one that lights up. Ironically, the Glade PlugIn was my first thought when I read about this week’s National Day of Unplugging.

So this is what we’ve come to in the year 2021.  As a counter to our undying affection for our electronic devices, a portion of the next couple of days has been designated “National Day of Unplugging” (NDoU) by a non-profit organization called Unplug Collaborative.  The Collaborative started its membership early last year and is determined to “spread awareness about how to maintain a healthy life/tech balance”.  Theirs is a noble, if not impossible effort.

Should you choose to participate in the NDoU “24-hour respite from technology from sundown to sundown, March 5-6”, I ask, will your life necessarily change for the better?

It’s just an awareness campaign, I get it.  Unplugging phones, tablets, laptops, and whatever else you consider “tech” for one whole day is essentially raising the white flag on what each of us already admit: we spend too much time with our screens.  But let’s be honest – what exactly defines “healthy life/tech balance”?  I think the answer is highly personal, depending on your job, disposable income, place of residence, and the ways you choose to spend your downtime.

My wife is a wonderful example of “wired” (er, “wireless”); someone who twenty years ago tentatively navigated texting, apps, and what little else her basic cell phone had to offer.  Today, she sports the latest model Apple Watch, two iPads, and a MacBook, all of which seamlessly share information with each other and then with her.  She even sports a protective wristband to reduce her exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

I can’t imagine my wife “unplugging” for four hours, let alone twenty-four.  My conversation with her would go something like this:

NDoU wants you to put your cell phone to bed – literally.

“Hey honey, so there’s this thing called ‘National Day of Unplugging’ where we get to shut down all of our electronic devices and work on making our life/tech balance better.  Just give me your watch and your tablets and your laptop and I’ll lock them in the closet until tomorrow night.  Sound good?” 

The response I’d get (if I did get a response from her) would be something like,

“Wait, WHAT???  National Day of WHAT?  Are you freaking kidding me?  Hahahahahahaha, good one, honey.  Yeah, let me think on that for just a second… um, NO WAY.  And keep your hands off my screens!”

I get it.  Not only does my wife fiercely track her 10,000 steps and her circles on her watch, she monitors a dozen or more daily feeds on her tablets, and countless emails and websites on her laptop.  It would be just as soul-sucking as taking my Amazon Kindle e-reader away from me (and let’s not even discuss that possibility).

This NDoU supporter doesn’t need screens… ever.

Unplug our gadgets and then what do we do… watch TV?  Sorry, if I’m really gonna play this game the TV also has to go.  The point of NDoU no doubt, is to reestablish face-to-face communication, prepare meals together, get outdoors, read books (what’s a “book”?), and so on.  Unplug Collaborative’s website lists fully one hundred ways to spend your time devoid of tech.  You can’t unlock the full list without signing up for their membership so I’m just speculating on examples.  [Hey, if you join, let me know if one of the hundred is “fool around in the bedroom”.  That one doesn’t take anything plugged in.  At least, nothing I have any experience with.]

If the NDoU campaign really gets momentum, I could see the unplugging moving beyond tech.  Perhaps next year we’ll give the washer and dryer a day’s rest too, as well as the home exercise equipment, the stereo speakers, and the kitchen appliances.  Now there’s a frightening image.  Imagine twenty-four hours in dirty clothes, with no workout, singing just to make a little music, and sandwiches and pretzels for dinner.  Okay, skipping the workout wouldn’t be so bad.

For the record, I’m a proponent of a healthy life/tech balance.  Taking away my screens for a day isn’t such a bad thing.  After all, we could be talking about my coffeemaker here.  Now don’t be talking about unplugging my coffeemaker.  You’re gonna have a fight on your hands and you don’t want to see me without my morning coffee.  Do that and I might have to think about unplugging you.

Coffee Breakers

Every now and then I take this blogging habit out onto the road, so to speak.  Instead of typing paragraphs from the home office, I’ll liberate my laptop from its cables, hop in the car, and head over to the local coffee house.  Working in a caffeinated environment – especially one buzzing with grouplets of chatty patrons – brings out the creative juices in me (if not the ability to concentrate).  Lately however, I’ve decided my little laptop show pales in comparison to some of the real road warriors out there.  Apparently, I need to show up with more toys in hand.  It’s time to go “Venti” instead of “Tall” and become one of the true coffee-breakers.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the patron I’m talking about here.  Coffee-breakers recreate their home office (or “office office”) on a table in the middle of Starbucks.  They consume more than their fair share of coffee house real estate (but not their fair share of coffee relative to their extended stay).  They arrange face-to-face meetings with colleagues, and interviews with prospective employees.  They hold Bluetooth conversations as they stare at nothing in particular.  Or FaceTime conversations as they have one-on-one’s with their phones.

I’ve come across several breakers in my coffee house stays.  They demonstrate distinct behaviors to separate themselves from those of us who simply want laptop time with our lattes.  First, breakers set up their workspaces, with enough time and attention to detail to announce, “Notice me!”  Then they go to the counter to place their coffee orders, deliberately leaving their setups unattended (as if to say, “This space is reserved!”).  Finally, they begin their “work”, which doesn’t really seem like work.  I can’t help thinking coffee-breakers are more often show than substance.

A few weeks ago at the local Starbucks, I left my laptop and Flat White to take a quick phone call outside the store doors (the polite thing to do).  When I returned, I found I’d been joined by a coffee-breaker.  She was carefully positioning two Bluetooth speakers on the table in front of her; then fiddling with her phone and a few other components from her oversized backpack.  As soon as her speakers gushed music (clashing with the Starbucks music playing overhead), she put in her AirPods and simultaneously took a phone call.  She operated as if she was in her own little world (i.e. I didn’t exist).  Therein lies another distinct coffee-breaker behavior: virtual walls.

On another visit, I was party to a conversation between a commercial real estate broker and a prospective tenant.  He sat his client (deliberately) adjacent to the counter queue, which (conveniently) put him in the center of the store.  The broker was hawking lease space in the adjacent soon-to-be-opened retail center.  No wonder he raised his voice as he spoke.  This coffee-breaker’s sales pitch was as much for me and my fellow patrons as for the captive soul sitting right in front of him.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently published a dozen rules for coffee-breakers; rules that should be laminated to every Starbucks building in the land.  Examples: Work only where and when you’re wanted (i.e. ask first).  Buy first, sit second.  Buy more than one small black coffee during the day.  Don’t take work calls – ever.  And so on.  Perhaps more enlightening was the reader comments in response to the rules.  I perused four pages’ worth (30+ comments) and not one came to the defense of coffee-breakers.  In fact, several comments added more rules to the list.

To my earlier comment about going “Venti”, I talk – of course – tongue-in-cheek.  A little attention is a good thing, but my hope is most of us would not deliberately choose to be a coffee-breaker (else this is the end of Western civilization as we know it).  Nope, I think I’ll take my road show to the library instead.

Some content sourced from the 8/27/19 Wall Street Journal article, “How to Act Like a Human When Working From a Coffee Shop”.