"Technology - A Blessing and a Curse"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“Technology – A Blessing and a Curse”

August 25, 2010

Attention deficit disorder has never impeded success on a Wall Street trading desk. So, when the New York Times reported, as they recently did, that “scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave,” it should not alter the behavior of your favorite broker. The piece in the Times goes on: “Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.” Most Wall Street traders that I know claim to thrive on stress and claim to be experts at ignoring irrelevant information. Stress affects us all. As to ignoring irrelevant information, some can; more of us cannot.

Information has never been so abundant and so readily available. Cell phones and BlackBerrys’ are often in hand; I-Pods dangle from ears, and I-Pads have become a necessary adjunct to hand bags and briefcases. More and more coffee shops and stores are Wi-Fi compliant. The internet is seconds away and virtually any question can be answered in moments. Twittering has replaced conversation and is considered better because one can skip from friend to friend without insulting the one or ignoring the other.

This enormous social revolution has occurred within a few short years. My sister who died only thirteen years ago would barely recognize the world her grandchildren accept as normal. The best historical comparables I can think of would be in 1450 when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, and the 1830s when the locomotive (1831), the telegraph (1838) and photography (1839) transformed America.

Just as the industrial revolution in the first half of the 19th century altered lives in a manner unrecognizable to those born a generation earlier and disrupted lives that had become comfortable in old, tried and proven ways, so this revolution is changing lives – outdating jobs that are no longer relevant, but at the same opening vistas and new opportunities that were beyond the ability to conceive a few short years ago. Society has a responsibility to help people adjust, but there is no going back and roadblocks to innovation will only hurt us all in a globally competitive environment.

Peggy Noonan had a wonderful article in the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal on the subject of information overload. We are, as she wrote, “part of a crowd,” all connected, yet we are also alone, “heads down, shoulders slumped, checking…e-mail and text messages.” In a perversion of normality, the pervasiveness of today’s communication technology means we are connected to those at a distance, but disconnected from those immediately around us. Ms. Noonan agrees with William Powers, the author of Hamlet’s BlackBerry who doesn’t dismiss the importance of being “connected”, but worries that its ubiquitous nature risks altering our lives for the worse. Mr. Powers and his wife, both writers, live on Cape Cod and rely on the internet. He deplores the rude intrusion of e-mail, text messages and IM. He writes, “But as we connect more and more they’re changing the nature of everyday life, making it more frantic and rushed.”

L. Gordon Crovitz had an equally fascinating column in Monday’s Wall Street Journal in which he discusses both the negative and positive aspects of the new technology. Using “the web”, he writes, “promotes personalization that can become fragmentation…and enables the wisdom of crowds that can result in the stupidity of the lowest common denominator.” On the other hand, he quotes Clay Shirkey, an NYU professor who makes the observation: “people spend so much leisure time being passively entertained by television that even a modest redirection into social media can be important.”

The demanding nature of cell phones, instant messaging and twittering can also prove fatal. As far back as 2002, the Harvard Center for Risk Management estimated that 2600 people were killed as a result of using cell phones while driving and that 330,000 were injured. Distracted drivers are estimated to have killed 6000 people in 2008. It is also estimated that 50% of all drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 are texting while driving – an appalling statistic.

Nevertheless, the Web and easy access to it are here to stay. Entertainment, communication, education, news services, books and the securities industry are all being revolutionized by these products, and new uses and industries will develop. Like other revolutionary periods, the birthing process is labored and uneven, but ultimately society should benefit.

A risk, in my opinion, is that the proliferation of so much information, made easier to access via increasingly sophisticated search engines, may well cause people to simply read or view that which fortifies one’s preconceived notions. While the internet makes it possible to broaden one’s horizons, the limits of time and the inundation of material may make that less likely.

William Powers writes that he and his wife take two day “sabbaticals” every week from the grasping tentacles of e-mail and texting and find that by being “disconnected” they in fact reconnect as a family. Peggy Noonan ends her column with sage advice. “Step back, or aside. Think what you think, not what they think. Everyone is trying to push. Don’t be pushed.”

The Net and access to it are only going to expand and get faster. It will speed up commerce and increase efficiencies. It can be used to increase one’s knowledge and broaden one’s vistas, or it can become a vehicle for polarization. Noonan and Powers are right. We must embrace the change it brings, but recognize that time away provides perspective, a commodity increasingly in short supply in this high speed world we inhabit.