I‘ve been reading a few posts, recently, about the increasing speed information travels with blogs and micro-blogging applications such as Twitter. There is a lot of support for these apps, as well as for similar services or devices like the BlackBerry. It’s an ongoing discussion as to whether this ubiquitous connectedness is good or bad, and I have a few things I’d like to add.

I put off getting a cell phone for a very long time. I didn’t get one until mid-2005, the reasoning being that I didn’t want to be available to be contacted at any time—although in reality I just can’t stand talking on the phone. Fortunately the phone has an off setting, so I make liberal use of that. I’m one of those Generation Y kids who doesn’t have a land line, but reluctantly recognizes the value of a telephone, and if you have a choice between a phone you can take with you for emergencies, or one that’s stuck in one place, thats kind of a no-brainer. Even so, I’m still considering ditching the phone entirely and using email.

I do not, however, have access to email everywhere. I could have this if I purchased a BlackBerry, but that’s a phone, too, and I don’t really see the point of needing to subscribe to both phone and email over a cell network since I’m not running a business and I send comparatively few emails. I would prefer email access over a phone, but if I get both, I’ll go the less expensive route and get a phone by itself. At least until the package gets cheap enough that receiving email on the phone has no significant extra cost.

Most people who know me personally know I check my email much more often than my phone. I’m in front of a computer all day. Then I go home and promptly sit down in front of the computer. I will be the first to admit, I’m enthralled with the internet, perhaps to the point of addiction. I look at it more like an intermittent conditioning, though: checking my email or my favorite blogs rewards me just often enough that I keep hitting the refresh button every five minutes, in anticipation of the next reward. (I just refreshed my inbox. No new mail. Dang.)

But there’s an interesting thing I’ve found. When I do get an email, I rarely respond to it immediately. I’m a busy guy, sure, but also, I like to think about my response a little bit. Even urgent emails are something I don’t have to answer for an hour or two. With my email still tied to the computer, I have a certain plausible deniability. I might not have been at the computer when the email was sent. No one really knows.

On the other hand, I think most people who call me realize that if my phone rings (rather than going straight to voice mail), and I don’t answer, I’m ignoring the call. There’s no way to prove this, of course, and sometimes I really am busy, but more often than not I just don’t answer. I’m “busy” in a general sense, and furthermore, I hate being interrupted to carry on a conversation about something completely unrelated to what I was doing. I’m not sure the level of this passionate disgust can be conveyed with mere words.

Anyway, if I had a BlackBerry, I would have the same issue, but now with email. People would know I received the email immediately, and if I didn’t respond within a certain timeframe dictated by unanimous consensus of people who routinely use BlackBerries (it seems to be around three to four hours), folks start to wonder. Still, the allure of having instant access to my email is, well, alluring.

In other words, I want instant access to information without other people knowing I have instant access to information. I want to receive data without a complementary expectation of responding to the data, at least not immediately.

“A turned-off phone creates a zone of mystery.”

A turned-off phone, or portable computer-based email access creates a zone of mystery. By not being available all the time, there is a certain temporal equity which is generated. I believe some people call this “breathing room”. Not being available means a greater level of privacy and plausible deniability when it comes to responses. It buys you more time.

How this relates to micro-blogging applications like Twitter should now be more clear. When a twitter user posts every hour, or every half hour or more often, they are squandering their temporal equity. I’m still trying to figure out whether people realize this is happening and don’t mind, or if they feel burned out by the activity, but can’t figure out why. If they are feeling stressed, I would suggest that’s why.

A lack of temporal equity restricts ones ability to plan for more than a few minutes into the future. It’s not that the planning can’t take place, but that it gives other people an idea of what you’re doing right now, all the time. This allows other people to 1) make their own decisions on how valuable they think your time is (i.e. via rationalizations such as “oh, he’s eating lunch right now, I can call and ask a quick question,” regardless of whether or not it’s a good time); and B) expect a faster response because, after all, what you’re doing is just [mundane activity], but I have this problem now and we need to talk.

In essence, relinquishing the mystery on your whereabouts gives everybody the opportunity to feel entitled to encroach on your time. Whereas before, they might say, “oh, I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” now—since they already know what you’re up to—before even placing the call or writing the email, they have already justified their interrupting of your time, whether or not you can handle an interruption at the moment. I could be wrong, but that really sounds like a recipe for misunderstandings, offense to be taken, and damaged relationships.

While I realize my buffer—the amount of temporal equity available to me—needs to be larger than most peoples’, I also think it’s a necessity for everyone to have a certain amount of this. “Always on” connectivity shortens the amount of temporal equity available. That will be find for some people, but as the amount of temporal equity continues to decrease in proportion to the increase in connectivity, we’re going to see even greater numbers of people struggle to adapt. I’m not sure this will manifest itself as people dropping out of the, as they say, rat race; most folks will try to keep up. Rather, this will result in a larger number of neurotic diagnoses—ADHD, depression, stress, and the like—as more people fail to successfully manage the demands on their time without a sufficient temporal buffer in which to plan these demands.

-Ted