Translator: Denise RQ Reviewer: Robert Deliman
We live in a constantly connected world.
It's a world of social media streams,
emails coming in nonstop,
and a larger world wide web.
I think sometimes you miss the fact
of exactly how much things have changed.
It is rarely the case
that many of us in this room today are truly ever off-grid.
We are always reachable, and the information can always find us.
Now, there are positives to this:
many of us before coming here today checked Google Maps to see exactly
what was going on with traffic and how exactly bad it was going to be.
Several of us can check things like the weather reports,
the local art exhibits coming to town; wonderful information.
Then there are others of us
who feel more harassed, almost hunted by this information.
Who feel a sense of stress.
Even with the things you enjoy keeping up with.
"Oh, my goodness! I actually have to watch out about walking dead spoilers,
I have to watch out about all these other things going on.
I have to keep up on this because all my friends and family are."
Even the fun stuff becomes something that becomes--
It's like stress constantly in your life.
Nor has familiarity created any sort of balance.
We've had email now for going on 20 years,
yet, in a recent University of Glascow study
they found that roughly half of the study participants
were checking email once per hour.
Many of the study participants were checking email
30 to 40 times per hour.
Earlier this year in China, a man collapsed in his apartment.
He had participated in a binge technology session:
14 days straight.
When the paramedics came to his apartment,
he reached up and grabbed one of their arms
and all he said was, "Please help me turn the computer back on."
It feels like that sometimes,
- but hopefully not as extreme anyone's case in this room -
but I wonder if you might identified more
with a recent story that happened to me actually a couple of years ago now.
I was going on vacation, to Hawaii, specifically the west coast of Maui.
My kids were excited; we're in Sea-Tac Airport,
and they are practicing their swimming strokes.
My wife was excited;
it would be the first nice trip we had taken in a number of years.
But I was not excited
because my work was coming with me: my laptop.
I'm an online marketer. It never really stops.
Holidays can be the worst with that too.
I was bringing bring my laptop, and we, in fact, had selected the resort
we were staying at because they had excellent wi-fi.
I needed to stay connected.
There'd be all sorts of social media messages coming in.
Messages by websites that I was in charge of; they would not stop.
I had to keep fielding that communication,
I could not stop, I could not take a break.
So in the evening hours in particular,
while my wife and kids were down at the pool,
down at the beach, or to Luau, I was working.
I was putting out those fires, I could not stop.
Now, my wife missed me in several parts of our trip,
and my children, as children do,
were very, very visible on how disappointed
they were on daddy,
and why exactly he was not down there with the other daddies at the pool.
But when I came back, I realized I wanted to change things.
So I'd like to share with you today two evenings.
The first evening takes place
and was much more typical before my Hawaii trip.
The second one has become a lot more common since then.
"Tommy, Angelique, Victoria, it's time for bedtime!
Just wrapping up a couple things here,
brush those teeth, I want them white and sparkling.
Alright I'll be in there just to read in just a second."
(mobile phone calling)
"Matt Cail, oh, good! Excellent!
So the network is up and running?
Oh, OK, everything is functioning?
Oh, oh, OK, you still have that one other thing to kind of straigthen out?
Do you need me to untie this evening?
Ah well, let me look here, it can't be that hard.
Yeah, I can get that done this evening. No that would be fine, definitely.
(mobile phone calling)
Could you hang for a second, please? One second."
"Matt Cail. Yeah, hey! I'm glad you got the mock ups.
No I like the blue ones, too. Oh, and you like green?
Oh, all right. That's fine.
Yep, you're all set for the board meeting in the morning.
Oh, you'd like five more versions? Tonight?
Well we could do that, but in the past
we've had a meet in person to go over those things.
You'd like to meet in person. Tonight.
Yeah, I know where that is. Alright. I'll see you there in a little bit."
"Children, I'm afraid daddy has a fire that I have to put out.
I'm sorry. I won't be able to read to you this evening.
I'll make it up to you tomorrow."
A second evening.
"Tommy, Angelique, Victoria get ready for bed,
brush those teeth, I'll be in there to read in a second."
(cell phone ringing)
"Matt Cail.
Oh, excellent! I'm glad the network is functioning well.
Aw, that node is still giving you trouble, is it?
Well you know what, actually I have a staff member
that I can delegate that right over to you.
I'm actually about to go and do a bedtime routine with my kids tonight.
But I'm going to follow up with you in the morning
just to make sure everything went to pad, OK?
Excellent I'll forward you right now."
"And delegate all other voice calls to voice mail," i.e. leave me alone.
(Laughter)
OK, are you guys all ready for story time?
Tonight we are reading "Lord of the Rings" here.
(Laughter)
"Wait, what was that Angelique?
Oh I'm very, very glad that you still think that Gollum is redeemable.
Yes, I know you want to marry him.
I'm sorry, what was that Tommy?
Well, I don't know, I'm not exactly sure what happened to Gandalf.
He fell a long way. They are in the mines of Moria still.
OK, now let me start reading. Alright now, let's listen now."
It comes down to choice.
What sort of evening do we want in our lives?
Now, I know that most of you are going, "Oh, my goodness man! Evening number 2!"
But are we actually living our lives in that way?
Technology is continuing to evolve.
It's becoming more pervasive.
You think 2015, 2016 represent a challenge.
Well, where do you think we are going to be 5 years from now?
This challenge is not going away.
Now, to face this challenge, I'm taking an information diet,
and I'd like to invite all of you in the room today to join,
join with me, let's diet together.
This starts by setting some technology boundaries in our lifes.
On that morning bus ride, perhaps you are putting the smartphone away,
you're not surfing the Internet.
Maybe you are enjoying the lovely gray fall scenery
which actually can be quite lovely.
After dinner, maybe you are saying, "No more computer tonight.
I'm going to hang out with my spouse, my friends, my family."
Or that friend - we all have them - who you are constantly commenting on
their Facebook posts or their Twitter stream.
And you are liking it, and you are sharing it and everything,
but you realized you haven't actually seen that person in years.
Instead, you are reaching out and you are making lunch plans with that person.
You are reestableshing connections and relationships
with your family and your friends.
Now the start is small. And that's perfectly fine.
But overtime, this is going to grow
as you reestablish and reconnect with these relationships
that all of you have in your lifes, in our lifes.
Ultimately, it comes down to how we are going to manage our technology
in an information workflow that works for us and that achieves balance.
Balance in our lifes, balance for our health,
and balance for our happiness.
Thank you.
(Applause)