Are You Feeling Guilty Because of Technology?

As if they uncovered some great fact, a recent survey that was published in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior suggests that women "...feel 40% more distress than men when family life is frequently interrupted..." by cell phones, Blackberries and laptops. Yes, those very things that give us flexibility and make it possible to manage all of the priorities we have in our lives.


Blackberry Guilt?



To which I say...No Kidding!

Here's the thing or things.

Managing multiple priorities has been something that busy women professionals and executives have figured out how to do with or without the electronics age helping us along. Each new tool seems like a gift to help us with work-life balance...until it becomes an intrusion.

So, yes, five or ten years ago, cell phones were a gift. You could take that last office call in the car as you drove frantically to beat the closing of the daycare doors. You could answer your boss' or staff's questions while you were on your way to the volunteer board meeting. Work-life balance at its finest.

Then suddenly, you could also answer emails, review spreadsheets and proposals and get caught in the microwave society behavior that wants it all. Now. Right now. And, generally speaking, we all get caught up in the same mentality. We want responses immediately - as if we are having a 24/7 conversation. That means we are more likely to want and need to respond. The definition of urgency has changed to the point that nearly everything is urgent. There are few distinctions between what is truly in need of attention and what just happened to be the next topic in line.

It's this sense of urgency that has really made the evolution of technology harder to manage. Whether it's the technology that has prompted us to become hyper-responsive or whether we've needed that in business and technology is just now catchin up can be debated.

Regardless, the end result is that all of these devices started to become more attractive for business and less attractive for a balanced home life. How can you give your attention to one priority in your life when the other is buzzing in the background? How different is it really than having your toddler at work pulling on your hemline all day?

It's the boundaries that get murkier and fuzzier. The lines continue to blur - but are they blurring anyway except to create more work at home? Are you losing the lines you've tried so hard to draw as a professional woman who also has life outside of her career?