Gadgets blur lines between work, play

It's becoming increasingly difficult to separate leisure from work these days, as tech gadgets are blurring the line between work and play, suggest two new U.S. surveys.

An increasing number of workers — 85 per cent of them — are packing their laptops, PDAs, cellphones and other tech gadgets along with their beach towels, sunscreen and bathing suits when they heads to cottage country this summer, says a report commissioned by Avaya Inc., a provider of communications networks and services for businesses, voice over IP (VoIP) and other technologies.

And nearly three out of four (or 72 per cent) of U.S. consumers like the idea of the "digital den" — a product that would easily connect their home entertainment systems to the Internet, says a study by the market research firm Ipsos-Insight.

We have become so work-obsessed, Avaya reported, that more than three-quarters of people who go on holiday (76 per cent) regularly retrieve messages during time off.

They sometimes do this reluctantly too. Among nearly 300 information-technology professionals representing a variety of industries, 54 per cent said they sometimes feel "overwhelmed by pervasive communications," and 93 per cent of these people reported a "negative effect on quality of life."

The results indicate that voice over IP, wireless technologies and other business communications applications are posing challenges to enterprises deploying them, and intruding on the personal lives of these professionals.

The new communication tools are making us work longer, too. Some 61 per cent of respondents said that because of the new communications technologies, they tend to work more hours each week, mostly because they will work on their own time.

A quarter of all respondents said they work two to five hours more, while 17 per cent said the addition exceeds five hours.

Still, the Avaya study found, corporations don't know how to handle the new communications technologies.

"Many enterprises, large to small, private to public, are finding that even if they have the best and newest communications technologies, they need help in making it all work well, without overwhelming them," Avaya vice-president Peter Licata said in a statement.

"And while the IT professionals we surveyed may be more exposed to some of these issues than the general work force, their responses don't differ greatly from what we see on a daily basis."

Despite the respondents' intimate familiarity with their local IT processes, 57 per cent said their employers do not give clear direction and assistance to employees in setting up a home office, travelling as an equipped road warrior, or implementing wireless network cards or a personal digital assistant.

In fact, 61 per cent in the survey said that on at least one occasion an important communication had been delayed because they didn't know the best medium to use at the time.

Not only corporations are having trouble deploying communications systems. Consumers want the technology in their homes, in what Ipsos-Insight called the "digital den," but may not understand or even be aware of how it would work, the survey found.

Nearly three out of four (72 per cent) of respondents to the U.S. survey said they are interested in a product that would easily connect their home entertainment systems to the Internet — the "digital den" — but have little time to put one together, and are worried about the knowledge required.

One major factor in their hesitation is that much of the technology doesn't carry a well-known brand name.

Digital den products include Ethernet media players, wireless digital media players, products that connect stereos with Internet music files, or link TVs to Internet movie files. Few of these are made by companies with a brand established in consumer electronics.

"Low familiarity and confusion are not surprising given that we are still in the early adoption phase of Digital Den-type products," Ipsos-Insight vice-president Todd Board said in a statement.

Mr. Board added that "translation clutter" is confusing potential customers as to what the products actually do. The same thing, he added, is happening to telephone service via the Internet.

Price, the survey found, poses less of a barrier than time or knowledge.

While two out of three (64 per cent) of consumers said they are not familiar with home entertainment products (for sharing music, movies, games, and other digital content between home electronic devices and the Internet), an equal number of respondents said they anticipate purchasing a Digital Den type product within the next year, if one is available for a reasonable price.

They said they would spend around $50 to $200 (U.S.) to connect their home entertainment systems — about the price of a DVD player or video game console.

They also worry that integrating their home electronic products means they will have to upgrade all of their current electronic devices or change brands in order to plug into a new digital den platform.