Mobile technologies that are blurring the distinction between home and work.

Mobile technologies that are blurring the distinction between home and work

As technology becomes more mobile, it can chain employees to the office 24/7 and blur the boundaries between work and home life. Some people find smartphones help them get more work done, but others are beginning to resent losing control over the ability to keep their two worlds separate. Employers are finding they need policies to let workers know what's expected, including when it's OK to power off. But many businesses still offer no clue, causing anxiety and frustration for workers.

 

Mobile learning has a lot of potential for supporting learning in situations such as in a museum, at a tourist sight or when exploring biological phenomena at a riverside. There are learners that can interact with their environment and still make use of the advantages of computational power. However, researchers have found many of such projects hindered by placing the technology too much in the focus of the learner. Instead of interacting with the environment, they found the learners interacting with the device, heads down and ignoring the environment. I think the issue of focus to be a massive problem, one which needs a completely new metaphor for the design of an educational and technical setting.

 

Another bad point about mobile technologies these days are for the fact that the risk of car accidents is a lot higher than it has been over the past few years. Driver distraction is a major cause of traffic accidents, with mobile telephones as a key source of distraction.

 

Mobile technologies I believe are too distracting and that's what people find more distracting than anything else when it comes to working. Even though a mobile device might be good for researching it comes with a distraction. I think that the mobile technology is blurring the distinction between home and work.

 

The mobile phone would seem to have some distinct advantages in areas that might make the most difference to the digitally disadvantaged. These include remote accomplishment and pursuit of jobs (such as when a freelance photographer or day worker is notified of a potential job) and easy social interaction and quick real-time coordination of personal or household activities, such as keeping in touch with, meeting or dating people of interest. Indeed such software protocols and systems are being deployed in Japan and Europe (especially Germany) and have been experimented with elsewhere. Finally, one of the most important areas to most people is that of personal safety. Here the mobile phone would seem to be far superior to the Internet and the regular telephone in terms of being able to alert authorities to potential problems or summon police in case of an emergency.