Addicted To Information?Addicted To Information?

I thought that vacationing for two weeks in Europe would break my wireless addiction. I left my wireless laptop behind but, alas, my wife brought her Treo smartphone and, after a day of resisting, I fell off the wireless wagon. This led me to ponder what one author has called the addiction to information.

In my behalf, I didn't use the Treo to check in on work (unlike certain wives I could mention). Rather, my main concern was grabbing news about the U.S. election and the World Series. Still, like many others, I find access to information to be irresistible. I noticed that, even after I had gotten the latest information about the topics I was interested in, I continued trolling for ever-more information.

This addiction is both the boon and the bane of delivery of data via wireless devices. On the one hand, mobile employees that have access to key enterprise data are far more efficient and productive. On the other hand, it fosters what I consider the unhealthy trend of 24/7 access to work, an addiction that feeds on economic uncertainty or, to be more blunt, on the fact that many people are scared of losing their jobs. The result, I mused, is that many folks have become addicted to information and can't comfortably live without a steady stream of it.

I didn't muse about this in Spain, where ubiquitous GPRS access fed my addiction and I felt quite comfortable. But when we got to Luxembourg and Belgium, GPRS access disappeared and, with it, my up-to-the-minute news about the election and World Series. I became nervous and fidgety and relied on that old fashioned means of gathering information -- television. Europeans were obsessed with the U.S. election but were indifferent to the World Series, so I only got half my desired information fix.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but a vacation should be a time away. And when we take our lives with us on vacation, we're not really away. So next vacation, I'll try again to break free of my addiction. Meanwhile, it's good to be back.