Mobile notifications put people in a state of perpetual emergency interruption - similar to what 911 operators and air traffic controllers experienced back in the '70s and '80s.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In a digital world, there are numerous technologies that we are attached to that create infinite interruption.
We all know the feeling of surrendering to the embedded biases of our devices. We let our cell phones ping us every time there's an incoming message and check our e-mail even when we'd best pay attention to what's going on around us in the real world. We text while driving.
When you have an emergency, there is the urge to do whatever it takes to see people get assistance.
I like to keep mobile. It keeps my mind awake.
The way we're attached to our phones these days, they buzz and twitch in our pockets, and we have to look and see if it was a text, a voicemail, or an e-mail. We're almost like lab rats. I tried to eschew the whole cell phone theory until I had kids; then, I had to be reachable at all times.
When you have a smartphone, the things that it can do are kind of ridiculous and terrifying.
It takes 25 minutes to recover from a phone call or an e-mail, researchers have found, and yet the average person receives such an interruption every 11 minutes. Which means that we're never caught up; we're always out of breath, running behind.
You have to take into account it was the cell phone that became what the modern-day concept of a phone call is, and this is a device that's attached to your hip 24/7. Before that there was 'leave a message' and before that there was 'hopefully you're home.'
Clearly, humans will always have a role to play in emergency response for law enforcement. But if there's an emergency, if there's a 911 call, the question is, do you want a human dashing off to respond to it right away?
I don't really care about interruptions. I accept technology, and I don't turn things off. I've found a peace with fragmentation and a harmony with switching gears quickly to other things.