What is hyper-connectivity?

While the Economist picked up the theme of technology's impact on jobs at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, the BBC focused on another major concept that seems to both unite and challenge all developed and developing nations.  That concept is 'hyper-connectivity.'

But, what is 'hyper-connectivity'?

In his article, 'When machines take over: Our hyperconnected world,' Tom Brewster of the BBC writes, 'What is hyperconnectivity? A term coined by scientists studying person-to-person and person-to-machine communication in networked organisations, referring to use of multiple means of communication, such as email, instant messaging, phone.'

The stats are impressive, as is the graphic of the 'Hyperconnectivity Range,' which I have posted outside my office door.

- By 2020, the number of smartphones, tablets and PCs in use will reach about 7.3 billion.
- 2 billion 'things' were connected to the Internet in the year 2000.  Today there are 10 billion. By 2020, there are expected to be 30 billion.
- 81% of companies have or are planning to have a machine-to-machine (M2M) initiative; 45% of those are motivated by cost savings.
- 40% of companies have a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, but 79% of those have not trained employees about the risks of BYOD.
- 52% of consumers have heard of wearable technology; one in three are likely to buy wearable tech, like Google Glass.

Brewster goes on to suggest that, 'We are entering the age of hyperconnectivity, an era where billions of workers worldwide will have multiple devices plugging them into the internet 24:7. Many of the tech gurus attending the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Cisco boss John Chambers, are raving about the opportunities this ‘Internet of Things’ will deliver for businesses, with machines talking to each other, controlling environments and delivering automated instructions. There are significant possibilities but also risks.'

There are indeed risks associated with hyper-connectivity, which is one reason why defining our era or world as 'hyper-connected' is problematic; 'hyper' means 'too much' and should therefore be associated with the risks of too much connectivity.  The other reason is that, notwithstanding the trends and the hype, not every part of the world is 'hyper' connected.  We still spend a fair amount of time over-coming 'hypo' connectivity (blank spots in mobile coverage, poor Internet speeds, low battery life, fragmented communications infrastructure).

Being one of the social scientists Brewster refers to, my colleagues and I have defined 'hyper-connectivity' as follows:

'Hyper-connectivity means too much connectivity, such as information overload, attention-taxing workflow and interruptions in collocated spaces. … Hyper-connectivity does not necessarily undermine performance, as individuals and teams often cope and some even thrive on constant contact. There does come a point, however, where individuals and/or groups can no longer successfully complete tasks or maintain processes effectively due to the inefficiency associated with information overload, invasive connective media and/or social contact.  We suggest that teams (this article was based on our research on distributed teams) must work to achieve a threshold of requisite connectivity in order to be productive, but simultaneously avoid hyper-connectivity, which can have a negative impact on performance and productivity.' (Kolb, Collins and Lind, 2008, 'Requisite connectivity: Finding flow in a not-so-flat world.' Organizational Dynamics, 37(2), pp. 182-183).

We define requisite connectivity as, 'the state of having robust and reliable communication and/or transportation media/modes, with operable alternative work-around options, so that contact may be initiated or maintained at the rate, richness and intensity that we desire for a given task or social outcome.' (Kolb, Collins and Lind, 2008, pp. 182).

The point here is that, in an era of dramatically increasing connectivity, understanding states of connectivity matters more than ever.  As we have also noted, 'States of connectivity reflect 'how much' connectivity exists in a setting.  As with other resources--say, for example, money--simply noting that one has connectivity or not is generally less informative than determining how much of the resource (i.e., how much money or connectivity) one has at a given point in time.' (Kolb, Caza and Collins, 2012, 'States of connectivity: New questions and new directions.' Organization Studies, 33(2), p. 268).

Given the stats listed above, there is little doubt that connectivity will remain on the agenda of thought leaders as well as the practical folks trying to make sense of a world where sometimes it does feel like 'machines are taking over.'

Hyper-connected? Don't blame your cell phone.

Feeling overwhelmed by hyper-connectivity?  
Here is some good news: technology can help keep you sane.

In the first study of its kind, Paul Collins of the University of Washington and I undertook a large-scale survey of more than 400 individuals in distributed work settings in 29 countries to explore how "requisite connectivity" contributes to performance and wellbeing, as well as the relationship between communication choice (agency) and hyper-connectivity. Hyper-connectivity, defined as "too much connectivity for the intended purpose or context of the user," is considered detrimental to work performance.

We expected to find that technology compromised individual choice about when and how to connect in the face of social pressure to be constantly available. 

Instead, we discovered the opposite: reliable, high quality tools help workers manage interactions and avoid the pitfalls of hyper-connectivity.

Participants were asked about the degree to which such things as email, video conferences and impromptu meetings affected productivity, how much control individuals felt they had over contact, team expectations about availability, and technological efficacy.

In our paper, we suggest that, "While we cannot resolve the 'free will' debate in the social sciences, we offer support for the notion that better technology supports connective choice, which in turn strongly offsets hyper-connectivity. In short, good tools are part of the solution, not part of the problem of hyper-connectivity." 

Paul D. Collins is giving this paper next week at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting in Orlando, Florida.  Title: 'Hyper-connectivity: How agency, response norms and technology do (and don't) make a difference'

For more on this study see:

http://www.business.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/news-and-media/news/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=570104

Not to worry...Networks are good!

In his recent keynote address to the Academy of Management, Barry Wellman was very excited about his latest book, with Lee Rainie, called Networked: The new social operating system.  Rainie is Director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project and former Editor of US News and World Report.  Barry Wellman is the S. D. Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where he directs their NetLab.  Wellman's distinguished career has long been focused on social networks--no, not the Facebook kind.  In fact, Rainie and Wellman argue that Facebook is not really based on social networks at all, but a reflection of a phenomenon they call 'networked individualism,' which is becoming the new social 'operating system.' Another famous sociologist, Manual Castells, has suggested a similar thesis in his two editions of The Rise of the Network Society.  The concept of networked individualism is, nonetheless, a new and important development in the way we think about social systems in a world of pervasive connectivity.

So, how do networks relate to connectivity?  Indeed, Wellman and colleague Anabel Quan-Haase were some of the first scholars to use the term 'hyperconnectivity.'  But when they--and Rainie and Wellman still do--use the term hyperconnectivity, what they are referring to is merely 'a lot' of connectivity, not 'too much,' as my colleagues and I use the term.  They refer to hyperconnected individuals as those who are almost constantly connected, usually using multiple media. We focus on the problems associated with performance and/or loss of personal well-being when that connectivity is considered by the individual to be excessive.

More fundamentally, networks are a 'given' (social structure), whereas connectivity is 'contingent' (within social systems).  For example, we are part of a family network regardless of whether or not we can reach family members by cell phone.  Connectivity comes and goes.

Networks, of course, do change.  In particular, they are extensible by their very nature.  And networks are a useful way to describe social relationships.  By contrast, connectivity is the interactive dynamic that both constrains and enables those social relationships.  If networks are social maps, connectivity is the traffic report.

Rainie and Wellman and I do agree, as I suggested in the iCrazy post in July, that the hand wringing over levels of connectivity can be over-stated and that we must be careful to clarify our sources when we make conjectures about the information and communication overloads some are feeling.  Hyper-connectivity (too much connectivity) is real, but it is difficult to say how many of us feel it, how much of the time, and to what effect.  More research is needed.