No, this isn’t some new spell uttered by Hermoine or Harry. The brother of this phrase is the more well known “Carpe Diem” which translates to “Seize the Day”. “Carpe Momento” translates to “Seize the Moment”. I can think of few other phrases that fully describe our eLives than Carpe Momento.
The whole premise of the advances of technology isn’t so much about how it gets easier to use, or to a lesser extent, if it becomes more powerful, but one of the biggest drivers of technological advances is in terms of speed. How much quicker can we run a report, close the general ledger for the month, create a Powerpoint presentation. It all seems to be about how much we can pack into a typical 7.5 hour day.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with having technology providing us with the tools to give us information quicker. There are many scenarios where having real-time updates are not only a convenience but in some cases, they can even provide direct benefits to our health and wellbeing.
I believe that the virtually instantaneous access to information has a distinct advantage when it comes to our medical care. Although our medical records are not yet fully computerized, you can bet that at some point in time they will be. Our pharmacist, our family doctor, our specialists and our surgeons will have immediate access to our complete medical history that is relevant to their care of us. In the future when we go to the hospital, our beds will have terminals directly linked into our medical records for doctors and nurses to access our medical history.
So where is this article going? What’s the “bad” part of this as it relates to technology? Well, I think that I’ve said as much in some of my previous posts, but this whole technological culture that has developed gives us a sense that we always need to be connected and that we always need to respond immediately. One of the biggest blessings and curses to our society is that of email.
Email liberates us; it allows us to communicate quickly and sometimes even effectively. The problem is that the nature of the communication method lends itself to communications diarrhea. In the era of the printed memo, one had to articulate and had to plan. It was known that a response might not be received in hours or days, so as much information has to be communicated to the recipient as possible in order to make the exchange of communications meaningful, concise and effective. Now, we read an email, think of it for as long as we think we might need to, and just respond – often to realize that there was something incorrect or missed out.
As always, I’ll add my disclaimer that I am just as guilty as others – if not more-so. I’m well known for my ten dollar answers where a ten cent answer would have sufficed. In addition, I have this horrible habit of thinking that if I’m emailed a question on something that I need to respond with my answer immediately. A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine joked that sometimes he’s amazed at how quickly I respond to some of his emails, his comment being “I’ve barely sent the email and in a matter of seconds (literally) you’ve responded.” I jokingly responded to him that it was my goal to respond to his question before he was able to ask it! I guess to be the Carnac the Magnificent of the email world.
As I said at the outset, Carpe Momento really should be our motto. I can’t really speak for others, but I suspect that there are many who could relate to my comment that I get so overwhelmed and immersed in technology that I forgot to live in the moment and to experience life.
This relates directly to a conversation that I had with another colleague at work. We discussed this very thing and how there seems to a distinct difference between the North American and European lifestyles (to generalize, of course). I’ve often heard it said that someone in the Western world lives to work, whereas someone from Europe works to live. These are two totally separate lifestyle choices and to be honest some days, the European lifestyle does seem intriguing.
