Is it rude to check your PDA at a friend's house?
Joni Blecher, editorial director of LetsTalk.com, replies "A little bit. But if you arrive at a friend's home and explain that you need to check a few e-mails before you visit so you can give her your full attention, she will probably understand.
Will Schwalbe, coauthor of Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to do it Better, gives this little rule, "Think of your PDA as a crossword puzzle. Anywhere it's acceptable to work on a crossword puzzle, it's OK to check your PDA."
Sounds like good advice to me.
I think technology is great. I love e-mail and cell phones as much as the next guy. But, the problem with e-mail and cell phones (and PDAs) is that they bring the urgent to us immediately and sometimes, the important (but unurgent) things get left behind or ignored.
It can be hard to find a balance and let go of the urgent things (especially when they interrupt life like a ringing cell phone) to focus on what (or who) is really important.
That thought begs one final question - How do you keep a balance between the urgent (but not necessarily important) and important (but not necessarily urgent) things in your life?
(question and responses taken from September 2008 issue of Real Simple magazine. Article was titled "Manners 2.0 and written by Katie McElveen)
2 comments:
Megan-
I have been reading your tech postings. They are funny, but the sadest thing is I do not even really know how to text and I just foud out how to check your email on your phone, Oh and one more thing, I just found out what a PDA is?? I know what a loser I am
I have to say that my husband's PDA drives me insane. When he first got it he would check it all the time. He's gotten better but now he uses it as his alarm clock and leaves it next to the bed all night - a pain because since his company does business around the world he gets e-mails all night long! I call it his "crackberry" instead of "blackberry" because it's addicting...the thing buzzes and next thing you know even I'M reaching for it to see who just e-mailed!
I don't know how to balance the urgent with the non-urgent...I'll be interested to see what others have to say.
Post a Comment