Well I decided I would start blogging regularly, so here I am again.
Today I went back to work after three weeks off sick to find myself sitting in an office, checking emails until about one in the afternoon. I fully admit, there were intervals, the odd ten minutes speaking to colleagues, a walk to the toilets and back...even a walk to the water dispenser.
At one, I ate my lunch (at my desk) while reading a student's assignment. Then I downloaded and printed a research paper, before answering another two emails in the afternoon and had a telephone conversation with a lady who wants a 'report'.
So that's half eight until one, then another half an hour of time consumed by virtual communication...5 hours of a 7 hours (ish) working day!
Now all this communication makes me wonder and the question is 'why'? Okay, I acknowledge, time off sick generates a full in-box, but my reply system was set for 'out of office' and so the box wasn't as full as it could have been...but I have lots of days like this.
Days filled with non-working-work. All this time tied up with pinging, sentence-long dragged out conversation. It can take a few hours of sporadic pings to arrange a meeting which would take 5 minutes over the phone.
There's talk of, 'information obesity' maybe it's also, 'communication obesity' we need to fear, so much time consuming, meaningless froth, which fills our time and leaves us interaction empty. Rather like a convenience meal - it tastes bland and you'll still be hungry at the end of it, but it piles inches on the waistline and hardens those arteries.
We spend so much time engaged with this constant stream to instantly demanding chatter, that we cease to seek conversation with meaning. In face, so full am I today with 'communication' that by bedtime, I am asking my chatting children to 'just shhhh, just one minute please'! The only worthwhile conversations today, dismissed, because my head is so full of ready-meal ping!
Today I went back to work after three weeks off sick to find myself sitting in an office, checking emails until about one in the afternoon. I fully admit, there were intervals, the odd ten minutes speaking to colleagues, a walk to the toilets and back...even a walk to the water dispenser.
At one, I ate my lunch (at my desk) while reading a student's assignment. Then I downloaded and printed a research paper, before answering another two emails in the afternoon and had a telephone conversation with a lady who wants a 'report'.
So that's half eight until one, then another half an hour of time consumed by virtual communication...5 hours of a 7 hours (ish) working day!
Now all this communication makes me wonder and the question is 'why'? Okay, I acknowledge, time off sick generates a full in-box, but my reply system was set for 'out of office' and so the box wasn't as full as it could have been...but I have lots of days like this.
Days filled with non-working-work. All this time tied up with pinging, sentence-long dragged out conversation. It can take a few hours of sporadic pings to arrange a meeting which would take 5 minutes over the phone.
There's talk of, 'information obesity' maybe it's also, 'communication obesity' we need to fear, so much time consuming, meaningless froth, which fills our time and leaves us interaction empty. Rather like a convenience meal - it tastes bland and you'll still be hungry at the end of it, but it piles inches on the waistline and hardens those arteries.
We spend so much time engaged with this constant stream to instantly demanding chatter, that we cease to seek conversation with meaning. In face, so full am I today with 'communication' that by bedtime, I am asking my chatting children to 'just shhhh, just one minute please'! The only worthwhile conversations today, dismissed, because my head is so full of ready-meal ping!
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