Q & A: How Technology Changes Work

Q & A: How Technology Changes Work
In just a few short years, revolutionary advances in information and communication
technology have changed the way we work. Many of us would feel helpless without
personal computers, e-mail, the Internet and cellular phones.

Over lunch at Cohen House, faculty members Steve Currall, Bob Dipboye and Paula
Sanders discussed how these new technologies have changed the workplace and
blurred the distinction between our work and nonwork lives.

Rice News: How has e-mail changed your work life?

Dipboye: Where I used to expect phone calls, I now expect an e-mail. If someone
has something really important to say, I expect a phone call. But, if I receive
a phone call about something that isn’t important, I sometimes find myself getting
a little pestered and think: "Why didn’t they just send me an e-mail?"
To some extent, it’s a matter of control. I can pick when I respond to an e-mail
but that isn’t always the case with a phone call.

Currall: I, too, prefer communicating via e-mail. My e-mail is set to check
for messages every 11 minutes and I have this impulse to respond quickly. So,
the challenge then becomes when not to respond to e-mail so that I’m not constantly
getting interrupted. I really had to develop discipline to ignore e-mail occasionally
so I can stay focused on a task.

Sanders: For research, e-mail has been like a godsend. I don’t have colleagues
at Rice who know the material I know, so e-mail allows people in fields like
mine (Medieval Islamic history) to stay in touch with one another. You can send
an e-mail anywhere in the world and get a quick answer to a question, and you
don’t have to worry about time changes. It’s made a huge difference.

It’s also a wonderful tool for communicating with students. I think it’s great
for a student to think "I really wonder about this thing in the reading"
and send you a message, when they might very well have forgotten about it by
the time they got to class.

I do think people consider e-mail to be less intrusive. A graduate student
who would be reluctant to call you might feel comfortable sending you an e-mail
asking for help. And I think that’s a good thing. It can help break down hierarchies.

Currall: E-mail is really good for maintenance of work relationships but not
as good for developing relationships. I find I can co-author papers with people
on the East Coast or West Coast if I’ve already got a relationship that’s been
established face-to-face. Then we can work together and collaborate electronically.

Dipboye: At work, I fall into a trap with my e-mail. It gives me a sense of
accomplishment, of really getting something done. After spending an hour or
more in the morning going through 20 or 30 e-mails it is easy to say "Boy,
did I do a lot this morning." In fact, very little may have been done.

I also think we’ve become so reliant on e-mail that we inappropriately use
it sometimes. There are some things that have to be conveyed face-to-face and
deserve a rich communication medium. When you’re giving someone an appraisal,
you don’t do it through e-mail. Proposing for marriage, you wouldn’t do it through
e-mail.

Sanders: It would depend on how you met your "beloved." If you met
him or her in a chat room…

Currall: You can miss out on spontaneous discussions by relying on e-mail.
Sometimes the interesting ideas among faculty come out of face-to-face hallway
conversations that e-mail does not allow.

Rice News: Are the effects of these new technologies different on a university
than they are on the corporate world?

Dipboye: The Internet isn’t seen as a problem in a university to the extent
that it is in corporations and other organizations. What is seen as inappropriate
use of the Internet by employees is becoming a major issue in many companies
and has led to policies and surveillance to restrict use. The Internet is seen
very differently at a university. By eliminating barriers, the Internet has
liberated scholars. We’re in the business of producing knowledge, and anything
that’s conducive to information exchange seems good.

At the university, faculty have always blurred work and nonwork. There’s an
expectation that your work day doesn’t end when you get home. There is collegial
governance and an atmosphere of trust that allows work to be done at a distance
over the Internet and by e-mail. The typical corporation doesn’t have a culture
or climate that is conducive to doing your work from a distance. Allowing employees
to work at home is not an easy decision in nonacademic work settings.

Currall: The average corporate person expects more of a distinction between
work and nonwork, but that has blurred in recent years because of increasing
use of information technology.

Sanders: I think there are ways in which it’s become more blurred for faculty
as well, because of technology, specifically remote access to e-mail, because
of the expectation that people can always reach you. I would never call a colleague
at home over the weekend about something that wasn’t a matter of real urgency,
but I wouldn’t hesitate to e-mail somebody. And to not expect an answer but
to be just a little bit surprised if I didn’t get one before the beginning of
the work week. It’s funny how e-mail doesn’t feel like an intrusion when a phone
call would.

Currall: Yes, that’s true. One has a choice when to read e-mail.

Rice News: You’ve got a choice, but when you hear that little tune that tells
you that you’ve got e-mail, it’s hard to resist. There’s something seductive
about some of these new technologies.

Dipboye: Along with e-mail, I think over the last 10 years, you’d have to include
answering machines. I used to think they were awful, and now I have one at home
along with a fax machine, personal computer, e-mail and a laptop. There used
to be just one part of my house where my computer was located. Now that I have
a laptop, anywhere I can sit I can work.

Sanders: That happens to me, too, with a laptop at home where now I find my
stuff strewn in little piles in different places that represent work spaces.

But I don’t think that the blurring of home and work space is the only kind
of blurring going on. I think people now have a notion that they always have
to be able to reach you no matter where you are. I don’t have a cell phone and
am always amazed by the number of people who do. I don’t understand why there’s
such a sense of urgency about always being connected technologically to people.

Dipboye: At a university it’s a different thing, but I think that a lot of
employers have the expectation that because of this technology, no employee
should be beyond reach.

Rice News: Is there a downside to these new technologies? Can they, for example,
increase our stress?

Sanders: I think they do. It’s analogous to what happened when industry started
producing mechanical implements which were supposed to decrease the amount of
time the housewife spent cleaning, but studies found that the number of hours
spent cleaning actually increased. I think a lot of these technologies have
actually done the same thing. I enjoy them, but in some respects they increase
my stress level.

Software development is one of the worst areas in American industry if you
look at the relationship between what technology is supposed to do to save you
time and the learning curve for being able to use it, and the complete inaccessibility
of practical information about how you use it: Poorly written manuals, no manuals
at all.

Currall: Not only are you a user, you have to become a technology "mechanic."
It would be interesting to do a historical study of when the automobile started
decades ago and the extent to which one had to learn how to drive it as well
as fix it, and I feel like that with my computer.

Sanders: What you often do is call on somebody you know: "Will you come
teach me how to do this?" I think there’s a lot more personal transmission
of knowledge about technology now.

Currall: This new technology can also reduce our stress. It allows me to distribute
my work over time. I don’t have to do it all at the office. I can chip away
at it. I can take care of a few e-mails at home which means I don’t have to
do it when I get to the office in the morning.

Dipboye: In a university setting there’s a lot more positive than negative
but I fear that outside the university, in the corporate world, the inappropriate
use of these technologies is increasing.

Currall: It’s a control thing. It can be a hierarchical tool for management
to extract more labor.

Rice News: For example?

Currall: In a university, I’m in an organization that’s relatively flat, with
fewer levels of hierarchy so there’s less distance between me and my boss. I
can choose whether or not to take the laptop home and increase my workload.
By contrast, someone from a corporation probably cannot do that without some
negative repercussions because they work in a more hierarchical system.

Rice News: So, the corporate person who feels he always has to carry his beeper,
cell phone and laptop no longer has the luxury of private life.

Sanders: Maybe 10 years ago you might be working a 90-hour week, but when you
went home, if you ever went home, you really were away.

Dipboye: Think of the salesman 20 years ago. The reason a lot of people got
into sales was for the independence. Now, salesmen can be monitored. Look at
the light company and meter readers. That was a fairly autonomous job. Now they
know where every meter reader is at every point in time and they can evaluate
how quickly they’re reading meters.

Currall: So, increasing use of information technology has made work more flexible,
but the total volume of work may be greater. As a result, nowadays folks can
choose to work any 60 hours per week they want.

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Steve Currall is an associate professor of management and psychology at the
Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management. His areas of research include
corporate governance and the role of trust in the workplace.

Bob Dipboye is a professor of psychology and management and chair of the Department
of Psychology. His area of research is organizational psychology.

Paula Sanders is an associate professor of history and director of the Program
for the Study of Women and Gender. Her area of research is Medieval Islamic
history.

Questions were posed by Rice News staff writer David Kaplan.