Technology Burnout: The endless ways to connect (and bury us)

Last winter I started and stopped writing about how overloaded and overwhelmed I feel with the onslaught of technology choices— specifically the myriad of tools and ecosystems trying connect people. I decided to try asking my friends what they thought and how they coped, and they shared their own tales of woe.

Here’s what I learned. The ease with which I can connect to anyone in the world is way cool— but each mode lacks a little something, and so there is another tool or system suggested which is meant to supplement and possibly supplant? The final result is that now I don’t just have email, but manymanymany more other channels I’m supposed to keep up with to stay connected to “everyone.” Let’s start with the list in my life, with the caveat that others may have way more “cool” tool choices.

Work email, home email— work calendar, home calendar. This seems straight forward, but they all need to be merged manually, then other calendars such as school calendar, family calendar added in. This in an of itself is the endless cycle of checking multiple calendars and then speaking with people to remind them (via text?) of their thing to do. “Don’t forget you have an orthodontist appointment in your calendar today!” Do I have a solution? Uh no. Work is S.E.P.A.R.A.T.E. Home is a myriad of channels (my Apple calendar competes with my Google calendar… and sorry but the Apple calendar is not helpful!). It’s a frustrating juggling act. What I’ve learned is I can’t keep up with personal email, so I limit my daily focus on it. And then I try to get all personal stuff into my Google calendar and invite family as needed. Without that I am not going to remember.

Texting is simple right? Not so fast! For people on Apple you’ve got iMessage, but I can’t tell you how much angst I had when my husband switched to a Pixel and my texts didn’t got through. There’s also Whats app, Signal, Messenger, not to mention Slack for non work channels and Symphony for work channels. And at work there’s Skype for business to add to the fun. Linkedin has a messaging feature as well. Many of these channels resort to sending me emails to tell me there is a message for me to see— adding to my email madness. Usually I forget which tool I was using when speaking to someone about something, which leads me on a treasure hunt. I have tried limiting which tools I use. But then my team may prefer using Symphony and I realize I am THAT person with tons of unanswered, time-sensitive questions, so I then have to check that regularly. This isn’t even counting all the tools I need to learn and deal with for video conferencing, social networking, mail groups—it’s quite a lot.

Normally, I like to post about things I’ve learned and find helpful, so this post is exposing something real and messy. But I worry we are all quietly getting buried under communications tools while trying to keep up with endless ways to stay connected. And of course, the endless context switching keeps us from being present and engaged.

I believe humans should be at the center of technology, not the other way around. The chasing of people through tools is reaching a tipping point of tech dictating how and with whom we connect.

Mick Ebeling of Not Impossible Labs talks about “Technology for the sake of humanity.” What could be more human than connection and collaboration? I am hopeful for the day when there is simplicity in how we connect and collaborate digitally. It’s great to have choice—sure. And I hope those choices are centered around me as a user, with a deep understanding of my needs, motivations and frustrations.