Superphones

Over the last few months, every time I have taken a vacation, I have taken along my Acer Book, thinking, well, you never know when you might need to check schedules or emails or something else. Given the nature of my profession, it has taken a lot of self-control to limit my Internet usage and, thus, deal with Internet Anxiety Disorder while on the go.
And despite my best intentions, I end up checking the news, writing one or more posts, and generally spending time answering emails, working, chatting and therefore missing out on hours of an opportunity to gaze at the beauty around or simply soak in the billion shades of India.
Apparently, I am not the only one who has this issue. Folks from LogMeIn recently conducted a survey over on LinkedIn. The question they asked was: “Do you plan to stay connected during your summer vacation?” A surprising 85 percent of small business workers said they planned to stay connected during summer vacation, and 60 percent intended to check email and voicemail at least once a day.
I bet now that we have superphones such as Apple’s iPhone or T-Mobile’s MyTouch and Palm Pre, we will be even more connected. I wonder when in the future the notion of vacation will be less about beaches, golf or mountains and more about no connectivity. (P.S. Lately, I have been experimenting with no computer usage for 6 hours a day. That self-imposed Internet diet is helping me think clearly.)


Amit Shethia
MMS 2008-10