pr-speak.com: Can You Hear Me Now, World?

I recently returned from a long-anticipated family vacation to the Italian countryside. We were remote. Very remote. We are talking rocky dirt roads (our poor rental car!), howling wild dogs and nothing around us but olive groves and grape vines. It was beautiful. No TV. No phone at the farm house we rented. Yet . . . I was connected. Not 100% of the time, but connected nevertheless. My wireless Blackberry was on, working, and kept me tethered to the world at home. I was happy to have it. It was a security blanket of sorts allowing me to stay connected with family and the office.

It got me to thinking, however . . . is there anywhere left in the world where one cannot be connected? These pictures suggest the answer is “no.”

So what does this mean for us, as a world community? Certainly wireless communications can be a great equalizer. It can help in times of crisis, it can completely close communication gaps between cultures furthering understanding and friendships. Responsible use of wireless communication can absolutely advance our world’s humanitarian efforts and, I believe, peace efforts.

But can we ever be really completely unplugged? Should we be? There’s a long standing belief, at least in Western cultures, that in order to truly relax one must turn off electronic devices and disconnect. Why? As long as co-workers respect personal time (which mine, thankfully, do), I don’t feel I need to completely disconnect in order to relax. Today’s companies are more often supporting flexible work environments – like telecommuting, teleconferencing, etc. All of that requires wireless connections to be effective.

But do we take it too far? A recent study produced the following findings:

76 percent check email outside their work day
60 percent admit to being “always on”
28 percent take Saturdays off but tend to work on Sundays
58 percent check email/voicemail before going to bed at night
37 percent confess to doing work while attending a social or family engagement
27 percent have responded to email during dinner

Over a quarter of those polled sent email during dinner?! What?! This sounds like a serious breach of work/life balance. And even our music devices, I believe, are not conducive to fostering communication and relationships. iPods make listening to music a personal, rather than communal, event. Music has long brought people together, but if we are each individually plugged into our own tunes, how is music supposed to do that?

On the other hand, technologies like Skype no doubt have facilitated closer relationships between people who would have otherwise not been able to communicate so personally.

But what it might boil down to is this (to paraphrase GeekDad writer Jonathan Liu): much of our technology helps to connect us to people who are far away (that’s good!)—at the expense of those who are right here with us (that’s bad).

I believe the human race is at the very beginning of figuring out that balance. As wireless technology becomes prevalent worldwide, even in the farthest reaches of the planet, it’s obvious the positive effects that communication will have on our relationships. As I already stated, wireless technology is a great equalizer. But we need to check our human “geek” nature that lets it too easily overwhelm us.

What are your thoughts? What does that mean that we are always, and everywhere connected?

By Kira Perdue