Always connected

I have found several of the posts on the issue of connectedness of interest. Online communication certainly provides a great deal more freedom and flexibility in communications as we no longer have to find a mutually convenient time to phone or meet. In teaching this would likely be more of an issue in communications with parents than students as I personally would be happy to communicate with parents by email but not students. I have a husband with a Blackberry and his 'always-connected' status drives me, and occasionally him, crazy. He ends up always being on call, answering emails at dinner, all evening, all weekend he is 'available' to his clients. This would definitely be a problem for me as a teacher and as other people mentioned it would be best to set guidelines for yourself and those you communicate with about when you would and wouldn't respond to emails to allow for time when you are not your job. Always connected seems to be the direction our society is determined to head but I think we will pay heavily for it as the stress of essentially always being at work will be too much for many people. There are already many more people taking stress leaves,switching or quitting jobs entirely and these numbers will only rise as we allow our work to infiltrate more and more of our life.

Connectedness is wonderful, and its flexibility is wonderful but reasonable limits and guidelines must be set for one's own sanity.