Connectivity is now part of life. Some are even addicted. We need to take charge of our relationship with technology in order not be controlled by it.
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It is a sign of the times…. Prosecutors in New Hampshire (USA) have ordered Amazon to provide recordings from an Amazon’s Alexa-controlled Echo speaker, which could have recorded events that took place in the kitchen of a house where a double murder was committed in 2017. Anybody who has such a device can ask for the weather forecast or the time of the next movie show and the machine answers. In the case of the double murders, will the judge ask: “Alexa, do you know who did it?”
Needless to say that connectivity is now part of our lives. For the best, when sensors measure air quality or noise levels or tell garbage collectors it is time to empty containers. For the worst, if sensors are, as it is already the case, positioned near stores and connect to our mobile phones in order to send us advertising and entice us to buy, again and again.
Needless to say that users need to manage their connectivity. According to research conducted by Dscout, an American company specialized in measuring consumers’ reactions to products, a typical cellphone user touches his or her phone 2,617 time every day on average, which means every 6 and half minute… Worse, according to research by Baylor University in Texas, 70 % of respondents said (in 2015, already…) that mobile phones they glanced at, even during a candle dinner, damaged their relationship with their romantic partners!
For those who want to limit their addiction, companies organize weekends without cellphones, while others try to limit their nuisance. For example, Yondr, an American start-up, created a case that locks up when a cellphone is put inside, so everybody can enjoy a play or a concert, for example.
Employees face the same problems. According to research by the University of California, Irvine, their work is interrupted every 11 minutes, partly because of endless email notifications. And then it takes at least 25 minutes to get back to the original task… So, it is high time to control what we are actually controlled by.
Let’s make 2019 the year of mastering connectivity, so we can connect to what is really important: human beings around us…