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20120104 International Herald Tribune

International Herald Tribune Tuesday, January 3, 2012

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A time to turn out

Roger Cohen, Globalist, London

Let's hear it for Volkswagen at the start of 2012. The German automaker has responded to demands from its works council by agreeing to stop the e-mail server to its BlackBerry-using employees a half-hour after their shift ends, only restoring it 30 minutes before work begins the next day.

...Inside those German private lives, I'd wager, couples are experiencing the now near-universal irritation of finding conversations interrupted by a familiar glance toward the little screen, or conversations deadened by the state of near-permanent distraction from their immediate surroundings in which people live. Device-related marital rows must now be running close to back-seat driving and how to raise the kids as the leading cause of domestic discord.

Connectivity aids productivity. It can also be counterproductive by generating that contemporary state of anxiety in which focus on any activity is interrupted by the irresistible urge to check e-mail or texts; whose absence can in turn provoke the compounded anxiety of feeling unloved or unwanted just because the in-box is empty for a nano-second; whose onset can in turn induce the super-aggravated anxiety that is linked to low self-esteem and poor performance...

David CK Chang, SSN057-86-4042,

January 4, 2011, Wednesday,

National Central Library,

Taipei City