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The Hyperconnected - by Lev Grossman

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The Time magazine (April 16, 2007) has an interesting essay by Lev Grossman: "The Hyperconnected". I think Mr. Grossman made an excellent point here--yes, people are becoming increasingly data-addicted due to the new generation mobile gadgets that enable data access anytime, anywhere. From the essay,

...It hardly needs to be said that this problem doesn't wreck lives with the ferocity of alcohol or narcotics, but we have yet to take data seriously as a controlled substance. Here are three reasons the problem is about to get much worse.

One, mobile devices are getting better. As if BlackBerrys and Treos weren't hard enough to put down, Apple will start selling the iPhone in June, and the new category of ultra-mini PCs like the FlipStart and the OQO2 is threatening to make computers as portable as cell phones. Two, wi-fi is becoming ubiquitous. Google and Earthlink have a deal in place to supply all of San Francisco with free wireless Internet access. Philadelphia, Anaheim, Calif., and Madison, Wis., already have it, as do dozens of other cities and towns. Within 10 years, most of urban and suburban America will be bathed in free wi-fi service. Airlines are expected to fire up in-flight wi-fi in the next 12 months.

And three, Internet CEOs have become obsessed with making cell-phone versions of everything we used to get on our desktops. It's the Internet equivalent of Manifest Destiny. You can already get Google and YouTube and CitiBank on your phone. Now that you can Twitter from your phone, there's no longer any reason to look up at the world around you.

There are absolutely solid argument. I believe in the next several years the mobile revolution will hit our society in a profound way that at some point many people like Mr. Grossman will realize the cost "... we're paying in our disconnection from our immediate surroundings, in our dependence on a continuous flow of electronic attention to prop up our egos, and above all, in a rising inability to be alone with our own thoughts--with that priceless stream of analog data that comes not from without but from within."

And I also believe technology will advance to help us manage the continuous flow of electronic attention, intelligently pausing the stream and kindly reminding us to engage with our immediate surroundings and to start creative thinking.

"Always-on, always-connected" is good for some people, but definitely not for all of us. So mobile gadget marketers, more flexible and customizable selling strategy is needed here.

This may also create a new opportunity for some mobile software house: instead of creating software that produces continuous electronic attention, try to come up with something-i call it 'Green Software'-that helps to cure data addiction.

I heard some Chinese software house has developed some software that deals with the problem of Internet gaming addiction. Similar ideas may be applicable to mobile wireless data consumption.

For example, the green software should prompt and then stop your web browser after it detects you have been actively browsing (and squinting) for more than half an hour; Text messaging while driving is automatically disabled (need some context-aware techniques here); you will not get any push emails/messages while you are on vacation, to name a few. Hi, somebody go get some VC and start the company now, and better name it "Green Mobile, Inc.".

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