智能手機正在奴役用戶

Slaves to the smartphone
The horrors of hyperconnectivity—and how to restore a degree of freedom

“THE SERVANT” (1963) is one of those films that it is impossible to forget—a merciless dissection of the relationship between a scheming valet (played by Dirk Bogarde) and his dissolute master (James Fox). The valet exploits his master’s weaknesses until he turns the tables: the story ends with a cringing Fox ministering to a lordly Bogarde. The film was an indictment of the class structure of Harold Macmillan’s Britain. But it is hard to watch it today without thinking of another fraught relationship—the one between businessfolk and their smartphones.

Smart devices are sometimes empowering. They put a world of information at our fingertips. They free people to work from home instead of squeezing onto a train with malodorous strangers. That is a huge boon for parents seeking flexible work hours. Smartphones and tablets can also promote efficiency by allowing people to get things done in spare moments that would otherwise be wasted, such as while queuing for coffee. They can even help slackers create the illusion that they are working around the clock, by programming their e-mail to be sent at 1am.

But for most people the servant has become the master. Not long ago only doctors were on call all the time. Now everybody is. Bosses think nothing of invading their employees’ free time. Work invades the home far more than domestic chores invade the office. Otherwise-sane people check their smartphones obsessively, even during pre-dinner drinks, and send e-mails first thing in the morning and last thing at night.

This is partly because smartphones are addictive: when Martin Lindstrom, a branding guru, tried to identify the ten sounds that affect people most powerfully, he found that a vibrating phone came third, after the Intel chime and a giggling baby. BlackBerrys and iPhones provide relentless stimuli interspersed with rewards. Whenever you check the glowing rectangle, there is a fair chance you will see a message from a client, a herogram from your boss or at least an e-mail from a Nigerian gentleman offering you $1m if you share your bank details with him. Smartphones are the best excuse yet devised for procrastination. How many people can honestly say that they have never pruned their e-mails to put off tackling more demanding tasks?

Hyperconnectivity exaggerates some of the most destabilising trends in the modern workplace: the decline of certainty (as organisations abandon bureaucracy in favour of adhocracy), the rise of global supply chains and the general cult of flexibility. Smartphones make it easier for managers to change their minds at the last moment: for example, to e-mail a minion at 11pm to tell him he must fly to Pittsburgh tomorrow. The dratted devices also make it easier for managers in one time zone to spoil the evenings of managers in another.

Employees find it ever harder to distinguish between “on-time” and “off-time”—and indeed between real work and make-work. Executives are lumbered with two overlapping workdays: a formal one full of meetings and an informal one spent trying to keep up with the torrent of e-mails and messages.

None of this is good for businesspeople’s marriages or mental health. It may be bad for business, too. When bosses change their minds at the last minute, it is hard to plan for the future. And several studies have shown what ought to be common sense: that people think more deeply if they are not constantly distracted.

What can be done to keep smartphones in their place? How can we reap the benefits of connectivity without becoming its slaves? One solution is digital dieting. Just as the abundance of junk food means that people have to be more disciplined about their eating habits, so the abundance of junk information means they have to be more disciplined about their browsing habits. Banning browsing before breakfast can reintroduce a modicum of civilisation. Banning texting at weekends or, say, on Thursdays, can really show the iPhone who is boss.

Together we can outsmart our phones

The problem with this approach is that it works only if you live on a desert island or at the bottom of a lake. In “Sleeping with Your Smartphone”, a forthcoming book, Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School argues that for most people the only way to break the 24/7 habit is to act collectively rather than individually. She tells the story of how one of the world’s most hard-working organisations, the Boston Consulting Group, learned to manage hyperconnectivity better. The firm introduced rules about when people were expected to be offline, and encouraged them to work together to make this possible. Many macho consultants mocked the exercise at first—surely only wimps switch off their smartphones? But eventually it forced people to work more productively while reducing burnout.

Ms Perlow’s advice should be taken seriously. The problem of hyperconnectivity will only get worse, as smartphones become smarter and young digital natives take over the workforce. People are handing ever more of their lives over to their phones, just as James Fox handed ever more of his life over to Dirk Bogarde. You can now download personal assistants (such as Apple’s Siri) that tell you what is on your schedule, and virtual personal trainers that urge you take more exercise. Ofcom, Britain’s telecommunications regulator, says that a startling 60% of teenagers who use smartphones describe themselves as “highly addicted” to their devices. So do 37% of adults.

The faster smartphones become and the more alluring the apps that are devised for them, the stronger the addiction will grow. Spouses can help by tossing the darned devices out of a window or into a bucket of water. But ultimately it is up to companies to outsmart the smartphones by insisting that everyone turn them off from time to time.

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智能手機正在奴役用戶

導語：最新一期英國《經濟學人》印刷版刊文稱，信息的爆炸式增長和智能手機的普及導致職場人士不堪重負，原本悠閑的個人生活被繁重的工作擠壓，甚至連婚姻和心理健康也都受到威脅。

主仆顛倒

1963年的《仆人》(The Servant)是一部令人難忘的電影。該片無情地剖析了德克·博嘉德(Dirk Bogarde)扮演的陰險男仆，與詹姆斯·福克斯(James Fox)扮演的風流主人之間的關系。男仆找到了主人的弱點，玩起了主仆顛倒的游戲：故事的結尾，諂媚的福克斯衷心服侍起了高傲的博嘉德。這部電影是鞭撻了哈羅德·麥克米蘭(Harold Macmillan)統治下的英國階級結構。但今天重新回顧這部影片，很難不聯想到另外一段令人憂慮的關系——職場人士與他們的智能手機。

智能設備很有用，它們將全球信息匯聚在我們的指尖。它們讓人們可以在家里工作，而不必每天與身上散發著汗臭的陌生人一起擠地鐵。對于想要靈活支配工作時間的父輩們而言，這是巨大的福音。智能手機和平板電腦還可以提高效率，幫助人們充分利用排隊買咖啡這樣原本可能被白白浪費的閑暇時光。它們甚至可以創造一種假象，讓一個懶蟲看起來像是在熬夜工作，具體做法則是通過設置，在凌晨一點發出一封電子郵件。

但對多數人而言，仆人已經變成主人。不久前，只有醫生需要隨叫隨到。而如今，所有人都處于隨時待命的狀態。老板會不假思索地侵犯員工的休息時間。雖然偶爾也有家庭瑣事會被帶到辦公室中，但數量遠不及工作對家庭的侵擾。原本心智健全的人會不停地查看智能手機，就連飯前喝口水的功夫都不會放過。晨起后的第一件事和晚睡前的最后一件事，都變成了發電子郵件。

原因探究

智能手機容易上癮是原因之一。品牌營銷專家馬丁·林斯特龍(Martin Lindstrom)曾經做過一個實驗，想找出十種對人影響最大的聲音。他發現，手機震動排名第三，僅次于Intel的廣告樂曲和嬰兒的笑聲
。黑莓和iPhone憑借著眾多優點無情地吸引著我們。無論何時，只要你查看一下這個閃光的方塊，便很有可能看到客戶的留言或老板的郵件，至少也會看到一個尼日利亞人發來的詐騙郵件：只要你向他提供銀行信息，就可以給你100萬美元。智能手機已經成了誤事的最好借口。有多少人敢說，自己從未因為要逃避更多工作而刪除過郵件？

超連接(hyperconnectivity)加劇了現代辦公領域最具破壞性的一些趨勢：確定性的下滑(隨著組織放棄官僚制度，轉而向靈活組織結構發展)、全球供應鏈的興起以及對靈活性的普遍推崇。智能手機市場使得管理者很容易在最后一秒改變主意：例如，在晚上11點發郵件給下屬，讓他們第二天必須飛來匹茲堡。

有了這些令人厭惡的設備，一個時區的管理者可以輕而易舉地破壞另一個時區的人的美夢。

員工們發現，上班和下班之間的界限越來越模糊，而真正的工作與純粹為了不讓人閑下來而安排的不必要的工作之間，同樣難以區分。高管也感到分身乏術：不僅要在正常工作時間內參加各種會議，下了班還要處理大量的電子郵件和信息。

這一切都對職場人士的婚姻和心理健康不利，甚至還會對企業產生影響。當老板可能會在最后一刻改變主意時，就很難制定未來計劃。已經有多份研究驗證了一個常識：如果不被持續打斷，人們的思考就能更加深入。

解決方案

怎樣才能不被智能手機打擾？如何才能在不被奴役的情況下從中獲益？“數字節食”是一個可行的方案。正如垃圾食品的泛濫迫使人們遵守更嚴格飲食習慣一樣，垃圾信息的泛濫同樣要求人們遵守更嚴格的瀏覽習慣。飯前不看信息可以讓我們重獲一絲文明的感覺；周末或周四不發短信可以讓iPhone明白，誰才是真正的主人。

但問題在于，除非你生活在荒島或湖底，否則這種方法很難奏效。在即將出版的新書《與智能手機共眠》(Sleeping with Your Smartphone)中，哈佛商學院教授萊斯利·珀洛(Leslie Perlow)認為，對多數人而言，要打破這種全天待命的習慣，唯一的方法就是共同努力，而非各行其是。

她通過一個故事告訴人們：作為全球最繁忙的組織之一，波士頓咨詢集團是如何更好地管理“超連接”的。該公司推出了一系列規則，細化了員工何時可以無需待命，并鼓勵他們共同實現這一點。很多強勢的咨詢師起初都嘲笑這種做法——他們認為，只有懦弱的人才會關掉智能手機。但最終，通過減少員工的透支度，該公司的工作效率反而得以提升。

珀洛的建議應當得到重視。隨著智能手機越來越智能，加之年青的數字一代逐漸走入職場，超連接的問題只會日益惡化。人們將更多的生活托付給智能手機，就像福克斯將越來越多的生活交由博嘉德打理一樣：如今，你可以下載個人助手(例如蘋果Siri)，讓它告訴你日程安排，也可以利用虛擬個人教練催促你多鍛煉。英國電信監管機構Ofcom表示，有超過60%的青少年智能手機用戶對這類設備“非常上癮”，成年人的比例約為37%。

智能手機速度越快，應用的吸引力就越大，用戶也就越容易上癮。夫妻之間要擺脫這種困境，可以直接把手機扔到窗外或馬桶里。但歸根結底，要讓所有人都時不時地擺脫智能手機的奴役，只有比智能手機更智能的公司才能做到。