Presence and IntComm WG

[Steve Blair <>]

Candace Holman wrote:

> At 01:13 PM 1/3/2005, you wrote:
>
> > A friend sent this to me and posed a good question,
> > "does presence and convergence solve or exacerbate this problem?"
> > http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2004/1128/cover.html
> > I'm interested in your feedback.
>
>
> There are many different issues discussed in the article.  I suppose 
> your friend is asking whether presence and convergence will help us to 
> cope with an increasingly busy life, marked by constant interruptions 
> and "cognitive overload".  This is a good justification for offering a 
> manual override on published presence status, so that you can choose 
> to appear temporarily offline even if you really aren't.  (Some people 
> call this lying. :-)  The finer the granularity, the better the 
> implementation - e.g. I'd like to dump a cold sales call to voice mail 
> but set a special ringtone for messages from a critical source.
Agreed. This is why I think a socially acceptable response needs to 
evolve. Without it the
number of interruptions will most likely increase as will the number of 
"dumped calls" as people
struggle to deal with "cognitive overload". Not a terribly productive 
environment IMHO.

> I like Levy's paper subtitle: "Technology and the Politics of Absence" 
> but I'm a little put off by his suggestion that we need a national 
> movement to convince ourselves it's okay to take a vacation.  I hope 
> my tax dollars aren't paying for his research.  Configurable presence 
> won't help the people who don't take their vacations, or who secretly 
> hope for hands-free driving so they can finally eat breakfast as well 
> as talk on the phone while getting to work.
Also agreed. Then again how many times do you see people on vacation 
talking business
on their cell phone. I've found the cell phone makes an ideal sinker 
:-).  I'm ok with tax
dollars funding the research if the results help shape public policy. 
Otherwise use the
money for a vacation.

> Candace


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