"I am suing my company over Blackberry!"

If you own any of the smart phones that can receive emails such as a Blackberry or an iPhone, you are probably addicted to it by now. Jokes have been written about the wife divorcing the husband (or vice versa) due to excessive Blackberry usage. Personally, I can recall more than a few occasions where my wife has chided, scolded, yelled, and screamed at me for looking at my Blackberry on inappropriate moments - say, when she's talking excitedly about her new earrings or when I am at a red light in traffic.

While many talk about this phenomenon as yet another necessary evil, right after the Internet, is it really that unavoidable after all? As many of you would swear by it, Blackberry increases your productivity by making you more mobile and allowing you to work on your terms. One of my colleagues used to go on world-wide trips quite frequently. When I asked him how he got so much time to make those trips, he said it was because of his Blackberry. As a management consultant, his work was flexible and did not require him to be on a specific location 9 to 5. So, he used to get most of his work done at various times of the day, thereby giving him more flexibility in planning his vacation. Not everyone is as lucky.

As a downside, I end up working well beyond my normal working hours due to the emails that pop up in the evening or sometimes even at night - apparently there are a number of others like me who send the emails in the first place - and I don't get to go on vacations either! While you can argue that it is all about time management, the reality is probably close to mine than my friend's.

The other downside of the addiction is our diminishing value of etiquette. More often than not, you can see your colleague busily checking the new email that just arrived and potentially responding to it hurriedly in the middle of a conversation or more commonly, while at a meeting. To me, it is kind of equivalent to someone sitting and reading a newspaper or talking to someone else when you are talking to them. Our sense of priority has shifted. The email, even if it is spam, tends to get a higher priority over an active conversation just because the device beeped. Surprisingly, doing the same thing with a laptop is considered more offensive than with a Blackberry. Somehow, the diminutive nature of the device makes it more forgiving. I am guessing that when we get smart systems that are embedded near our ears and just read out our emails, it will become even less annoying, while being even more inappropriate.

The dangers of being addicted are not necessarily concerning only to the individuals who use such devices. I came across an interesting article in ACM Communications that implied that such addiction may actually prove legal grounds for an employee to sue his or her employer. Intrigued?

Nowadays, most smart phones are sponsored by the company (like mine) with the intention of creating the ideal scenario - giving more flexibility and making the employee more productive. However, if the organization also promotes either implicitly or explicitly, working beyond normal working hours, the employee can potentially argue that the company made him addicted to the phone. While there are a number of arguments that can be made for and against (flexibility vs. addiction), a plausible case may still exist, especially if the employee can go further and prove that such addiction caused physical or psychological problems (divorce, for example).

So, if the addiction is so disruptive is there anything we can do about it? How can we have a healthy obsession over our Blackberry while still not succumbing to its temptations at inappropriate moments? To answer this, we need to look at the reason why we are so addicted.

The concept behind Blackberry addiction is not new. The fundamental principle was proven by Pavlov a few decades back, in what is now famously known as the Pavlovian Effect.

Pavlov is most famous for "Pavlov's dogs." At the same time each day, Ivan Pavlov, would ring a bell to summon his dogs to eat. Pavlov noticed that the dogs would salivate at the ring of the bell, before they had begun to eat. This is called "Classic Conditioning". When provided a consistent stimulus, our brain reconditions itself to the stimulus so that it is tuned to that stimulus all the time. In the case of smart phones, from the original stimulus where the 'chime' meant an important email or message, the situation changes to an uncontrollable response for the 'chime' regardless of whether the message that follows is important or not.

Our smart phones are no different than the bell that the dogs responded to. We respond to them as soon as they vibrate, chime, or ring. We are conditioned to the tone. Much as the phones are "smart" and we are smarter, in the end, our primitive instincts have kicked in and have relegated us to the past centuries. However, maybe we can take a few steps to curb the instincts. This can be done by just two simple steps.

1. Create a new profile in your phone, say "Home", where it will ring when it is a phone call and will be silent for all other reasons - meetings (hopefully not), emails, SMS, etc. Essentially, convert your "smart" phone to just a phone outside work.
2. Once you reach home, keep your phone face down and away from the couch such that you have to get up in order to check it.

These two steps rob us of the three senses that are activated when a new email comes in (hear, see, and feel) - I am assuming that your phone does not taste yummy or smell great (or nasty)! As with any addiction, de-addiction does not happen in one fell swoop - you might find yourself checking the Blackberry whenever you cross it, and that's ok. At least it'll not be as instantaneous as you do now. Eventually you'll realize that the new frequency has not disrupted your routine as much as you were afraid of and it will become the new norm.

That's it. See if that makes a difference. Let me know by posting a comment.

Finally, remember one thing: years from now, you will not remember the countless times you responded promptly to an email during dinner or the times when your boss was mad at you because you did not respond late at night. However, you will remember the time when your wife didn't speak to you for three days because you responded to an email while having dinner and more importantly, your wife will remember the time when you complemented her new earrings ignoring the Blackberry chimes!