Mobile devices may offer greater freedom and productivity, but only if we have the power to disconnectAfter the invasion of the world for mobile devices (Nokia has sold only last year nearly 120 million handsets around the world) is necessary to review how wireless communications will change the way we interact, do business and conduct our lives.
Shortly before his death, Michael Dertouzos, who then was director of the Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is responsible for the Oxygen Alliance, a consortium of big companies brilliant scholars and thinkers who collaborate to make computers in "a very natural part of our environment", granted this interview to the American edition of ComputerWorld.
In your book you write about confusion and frustration growing in direct proportion to the devices and appliances that surround us. And yet, is a strong proponent of the power of information technology to improve our lives. Are the information technology making the world better or worse?
- The best attributes of mobile communication are comparable with the human ability to travel, and can allow transmission of information anywhere, anytime. And that's important. Wherever you are and whenever one needs to be contacted, can transmitírsele information. You can access the Internet, or talking to a child. At the technical level, the most important disadvantages are that the mobile communication does not offer a very high speed, screens are too small, and the amount of information is limited. And the social level, taking place some shocks and changes, to be human beings under the tentacles of communication networks, they can now be contacted at any time. One is watching a sunset, and the damn thing starts to sound. Just because we have come to be interconnected, we have not acquired the right to bother anyone with our emails or phone calls. Neither have been subject to an automatic obligation to respond to other posts. Just because one is connected, shall not be liable to any message without thinking. If you do not want to be disturbed, it is better off. And the damn thing off if you are watching a sunset.
How does one reconcile this advice with the growing trend in business toward the ability to access worldwide 24 hours a day 7 days a week?
- I could understand that in some business situations someone said, "I need to contact you at any time." And then, of course, have to decide if that's the kind of life you want. Has the time to leave the company? If we use mobile technology as an oppressive tool to impose controls on human beings, to keep more closely linked to the corporate center, I think we will fail. But if we use it to increase the power of individual people, we will be winners. It's the difference between the era of Henry Ford, when employees were treated as interchangeable parts, and Ford post-modern era, in which employees are important and should be treated with great respect and have the ability to improve company its entirety with its own brand of individualism. Companies that understand this are now the best companies in the world.
By continuing explosion in the number of users.
