The combination of email and portable communications devices has created the ‘instant messaging’ phenomenon; and with it a sometimes unreasonable expectation of constant, immediate attention grabbing. This is especially pronounced at work where everyone feels their input vital to the success of the enterprise, but also spills over into the personal and alters relationships in ways we never quite anticipate. Many have commented that the leash has grown short and tight. Would that we could turn off that expectation at the end of the day, or even during the day, as family pile on making equal or greater demands of our time and energies. Friends are a little more forebearing; but not always and in inverse ratio to closeness. Before pagers and cell-phones, we could pretend a bit we were away from our desk and let the answering machine field our calls (one feature I miss is hearing the caller, allowing me to pick up or ignore as appropriate). We could then prioritize and respond in a manner that was efficient, fair, and gratifying; without creating an impression of aloofness among the very people to whom we mean to be most accessible.

Many of us are accused of becoming workaholics or ‘hiding out at work’, and to some extent that is true; and truer the longer we’re in a relationship. However, some of it is definitely due to the technology. All relations change, strained and broken marriages are nothing new. Yet, there has clearly been an increase in strain traceable to greater availability. You may think that is counter-intuitive, that to have good relationships means you are always available to those ‘significant others’; but it’s just not true. Even in loving relationships, we must have boundaries. In fact, I suspect the most successful relations are those in which boundaries are scrupulously respected and mutually prized. Bosses and coworkers can be demanding, but we appeal to their professionalism to meet us part way. Not so with loved-ones, to whom access is expected and ‘deferred’ or ‘ignored’ means ‘you no longer love me’.

Thirty years ago, I’d go to work and have little daytime interaction with my wife. Today, she and my son have so much access it seriously interferes with work. Both of us (back then) accepted that ‘at work’ generally meant unavailable; and if she needed to communicate with me it was a) important, b) would wait unless life-threatening, and c) was subject to priorities. Now, often as not, I am bombarded while sitting in meetings, deeply mired in solving problems, or thirty feet in the air with one leg suspended that I might listen to the latest opportunity, anecdote, gossip, news, sharing, anxiety, quarrel or rant. This is not because my wife and son are deliberately or particularly pestiferous, they are simply creatures of culture, technology, and habit; who think cell-phones were invented just so they might communicate (our phone bill reveals wife/me 6:1, son/me 25:1). Technology has broken down an important boundary and we have yet to adapt appropriately to the change. Time to lay down the law?