People love to hate connectivity. Crabbing about our “always on” culture is so commonplace, people even do it from their mobile phones. On social media.
This makes my skin crawl. As a freelance writer whose livelihood is only possible by being always on and the technology that allows it, it irks me personally, but there’s a larger reason why the complaint is wrongheaded.
Sure, having to answer an email on vacation or during dinner is annoying. It’s a small problem, and people do go overboard sometimes. But isn’t not being able to make dinner because you can’t leave the office worse? Or having to leave a vacation early to deal with a disaster?
Today, I am in Rockledge, Florida living out the evidence of why the ability to be always on gives me the ability to have a richer life. Doing what I do, it’s possible to decrease my work dramatically for a week, but it’s pretty much impossible to stop it altogether, unless I want to take a serious hit to my income. But here I am, able to spend a week with my grandmother, mom, aunt, uncle, sister, cousins and brand new nephew because I can work wherever I go.
Last night, I wrote a story at my aunt’s house. Today, I did an interview at Downtown Disney. Then I spent the rest of of the day enjoying my loved ones. I sent some emails from the car. Tomorrow I’ll work for about half the day and then snuggle with my nephew for the rest of the weekend.
If this is always on, I don’t ever want to be off.
Natalie Burg 