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Turn off your mobile so that calls and unnecessary alerts do not bother you, do not check email – are we comfortable being out of reach?
The goal of the project, led by French sociologist Francis Jauréguiberry*, is to study the ways we use the Internet to at least from time to time be out of range, not answering mobile calls and messages on the Web. A team of 15 researchers spent 4 years comprehensively analyzing this phenomenon.
It turned out that users prefer to find solutions in which they, without cutting themselves off from others, are not exposed to a flow of unwanted information and do not feel obliged to respond to the call of their superiors at any time. In other words, it’s more about controlling the impact of technology on our lives, rather than rejecting it.
Read more:
- Internet addiction: is it all that bad?
Various population groups were interviewed. Working people admitted that they are very much involved in the Internet and do not imagine that it could be any different. At the same time, 78% of respondents believe that information and communication technologies give rise to an ever-increasing volume of tasks that have to be solved after hours or outside the working walls. More than a third of respondents admitted that they do not feel entitled to turn off their communication devices and stay out of range. Which, however, does not prevent them from sometimes doing this for a short time: for example, during a meeting or at a friendly party. Thus, these shutdowns tend to be “one-time, and most often for a short time.”
Another well-known devourer of our attention and time is e-mail. Someone assigns himself a strictly defined time to view the mailbox (some do not open the mail for several days). Others, on the contrary, prefer hyper-inclusion: in order to avoid the accumulation of letters (which causes stress), they set their devices to immediately receive notifications of new mail and respond to it.
Read more:
- Web detox: how to beat internet addiction
What happens on vacation? As it turned out, vacationers are also not ready to be outside the access zone for a long time, mainly because they want to regularly contact their loved ones and keep abreast of their news. It remains only to determine how often this should be done in order to still avoid a headache.
* Francis Jauréguiberry “Voluntary disconnection from information and communication technologies”, ANR, January 2014.