Always Connected Means No More Vacation

By Jake • July 16th, 2010 • 13 Comments

Interesting piece from Salon.com mirroring what I observe from people in this business.

I’ve known people who left their IM status permanently active to give the illusion that they were always working. Reminded me to George Costanza leaving his car parked in the lot to seem like the first to arrive and last to leave.

We Americans do put high value on working hard, and there is a cost.

Like this author of this post, it usually takes me two days of vacation to relax and accept disconnectedness.

The best vacation of my life was spent on an island with absolutely no connectivity. No TV, no newspapers, no interwebs, nothing but relaxation.

No more vacation: How technology is stealing our lives – Internet Culture – Salon.com

Find the comments and add your thoughts.


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  • http://only4left.jpiwowar.com jpiwowar

    I've been abundantly lucky on the vacation front (as in, unusually large sample size), and I can definitely confirm that “unreachable” is the best way to go. Like the pool visitors in the article, even knowing that I *might* be contacted was enough to put a damper on things.

    You're pretty lucky to be able to decompress in 2 days, though. Takes me about 4.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    Wow, it's a good thing you have a larger sample size bc after four days, it's almost time to go back to real life. At least most of my vacations are only about a week or ten days.

    That's a different facet of the same problem.

  • http://bexhuff.com bex

    You want to feel *really* disconnected? Ditch you phone and computer, and take a vacation in the country where you don't know the language.

  • http://only4left.jpiwowar.com jpiwowar

    I'll second that. Of course, I'm one of those “Ah only speak 'merican” types, so getting somewhere where I don't speak the language is pretty easy. ;-)

  • http://only4left.jpiwowar.com jpiwowar

    I came across this article in the Vancouver Sun (dead-tree edition, believe it or not): http://communities.canada.com/VANCOUVERSUN/blog… The first line seemed relevant to this conversation: “Many silent retreats don't really get going until the third day.” Easy to switch off the flow of digital stuff, but our brains seem to take roughly the same amount of time to switch gears.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    I could make a case for areas of the US where that's possible.

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    This seems to support the prevailing theory that the brain doesn't do task-switching as well as we think it does. In this case, you'd think it would be easier, since it's switching from work to play.

  • joel garry

    I'm pretty lucky in that I don't use my phone for work much. So I went on vacation, told the boss I'd be available after Tuesday if he had any questions (I'm always uncomfortable rushing new stuff into production and then leaving…). So I'm up by a waterfall with the kids while the wife is down in the valley, and like most everyone else discover that her cheapo phone works a lot better than my smart phone. We leave each other a series of voicemails, hers increasingly frantic as what I leave for her is just static and I can't get to my voice mail. Eventually we connect and go on with our lives.

    Finally on Sunday I get around to listening and deleting her voicemails, as well as my pool guy's (who I had called back from the missed call list, since I guessed what it was about – the computer control on my new energy-saving pool pump was beyond the grasp of the manufacturer support department), and discovered the important call from boss buried between, which had been listed in the missed call list as “no number.”

    Fortunately, his attitude is “turn the thing off when on vacation,” which is what he assumed I had done, even though I said and intended otherwise.

    ¡hooray para la falta electrónica!

    Not being in front of a screen, I don't have to take time to disconnect. But I reconnect immediately given any laptop. I find it humorous seeing my retired sister and brother-in-law addicted to their laptops and crackberries in their mountain hideaway. I guess you can get enough of anything, then you just don't care as much anymore, if you are lucky or mindful of the risks. I had about a 15-20 year head start on them…

  • http://theappslab.com Jake

    For those of us in this business who work from home, the option of constant connectivity is a requirement to replace that old school, see-you-in-the-office interaction. We invite it bc we have to assure our management chain (mostly) that we're working. This makes it all the more difficult to disconnect.

    Still, it's worth it to work from home.

    It's good to know how long it will take you to unwind, so you can plan accordingly :)