People need to be connected
and everyone needs information. The right amount
and quality of information at the right time gives us unprecedented power. Too much information and digital distraction,
however, can keep us from getting important things done. It can keep us from connecting with those
around us[i]. What many of us want is Zen-like ‘flow,’
i.e., not too little and not too much connectivity. My colleagues and I called
this a state of ‘connective flow’ in our studies[ii]
of distributed work teams.
How good are individuals at
monitoring and managing connective flow?
Increased adoption of smartphone and other connective technologies has
brought a subsequent growing concern and interest in the importance of
regulating the quantity of interactions
for organizational performance, while not undermining individual wellbeing[iii].
In a recently published article in the EuropeanJournal of Information Systems, Kristine Dery of the MIT Sloan School, Judi MacCormick and I compared how smartphones use changed
from the height of the ‘CrackBerry’ era, in 2006 (the iPhone arrived in 2007),
in the same sample re-interviewed in 2011. Our study was conducted within a
large global financial services corporation and interviews took place mainly in
Paris and Sydney. Corporations like the one we studied embraced technologies
like the BlackBerry, which offered increased connectivity between workers,
while the corporate culture often lead to employees suffering from hyper-connectivity
and burnout.
Our findings revealed a few
major shifts in smartphone usage in the five (5) years between interviews. First, the iPhone had come onto the scene and
while the corporation remained on and only supported the BlackBerry device,
almost every participant in our study had also purchased an iPhone, which they
used for both personal and work purposes.
Second, in the first round of interviews, participants expressed a
love-hate relationship with the BlackBerry, some secretly wishing it would be
lost or stolen, so they could ‘get a break.’
Five years on, our
participants were much more comfortable taking work into their own hands,
literally. In managing their connections
with work in the first round, interviewees spoke of ‘switching it off’ and
‘escaping’ its spell on them. In the
second round, they spoke of managing the ‘flow’ of information, turning the
flow up or down ‘like a tap,’ as one interviewee described it. And, finally these knowledge workers
moderated the flow of media and connections between work and non-work life more
seamlessly, with much less stress than they expressed in the earlier phase of
our study.
Although the ‘CrackBerry’
days of email obsession may be gone[iv],
myriad new work and social media have exponentially exploded in the hands of
smartphone users. Other studies of knowledge workers have proven that addictive
and dysfunctional behaviors are still commonly associated with mobile
technologies.[v] In our study, however, we have found that the
use of smartphones is evolving relatively rapidly and that we are more or less
adjusting to and making different choices when it comes to these tools that
characterize our age.
For
those seeking the good life in a digital age, I recommend William Powers’ book,
Hamlet’s BlackBerry: …. It sounds dated, but his insights and story telling
make an excellent read for anyone who feels there must be more to life than the
latest tweet.
A version of this article, titled, 'Finding flow: Smartphone users getting smarter,' appeared in the New Zealand Herald on Tuesday, 13 May 2014.
[i] Turkle, S. (2011) Alone
together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other. New
York: Basic Books; MacCormick,
J., Dery, K., & Kolb, D. G. (2012). Engaged or Just Connected?: Smartphones
and Employee Engagement. Organizational
Dynamics, 41(3), 194-201.
[ii] Kolb, D. G., Collins, P. D.
and Lind, E. A. (2008). Requisite connectivity: Finding flow in a not-so-flat
world. Organizatonal Dynamics, 37
(2), 181-189.
[iii] Powers, W. (2010). Hamlet's
Blackberry: Building a good life in the digital age. New York: Harper
Perennial; Kolb, D. G., & Collins, P. D. (2011). Managing
Personal Connectivity: Finding Flow for Regenerative
Knowledge Creation. In G. Gorman & D. Pauleen (Eds.), Personal Knowledge Management: Individual, Organizational and Social
Perspectives. Surrey, England: Gower, 129-142.
[iv] Dery, K., Kolb, D.G. and MacCormick, J. (forthcoming,
2014). Working with flow: The evolving practice of smartphone technologies. European Journal of Information Systems.
[v] Perlow, L. A. (2012). Sleeping with your smartphone: How to break
the 24/7 habit and change the way you work. Boston: Harvard Business School
Publishing; Mazmanian, M., Orlikowski, W. J., & Yates, J. (2013). The Autonomy
Paradox: The Implications of Mobile Email Devices for Knowledge Professionals. Organization Science, 24 (5), 1337-1357;
Mazmanian, M. (2013) Avoiding the trap of constant connectivity: When congruent
frames allow for heterogeneous practices. Academy of Management Journal, 56
(5), 1225-1250.
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