Fully Connected: Surviving and Thriving in an Age of Overload, by Julia Hobsbawm

I¡¯ve always had a bit of a thing for stationery. I look forward every year to 바카라사이트 arrival of my new Moleskine organiser, my tabula rasa of order and potential. I almost immediately write down an aide-memoire for each spell of annual leave I plan to take: ¡°Update out-of-office auto-reply.¡± I am aware of how tragic this confession may sound, but I am also willing to bet that you know what I mean ¨C not only about 바카라사이트 joys of an analogue diary, with its narrow-ruled lines and concertinaed pocket at 바카라사이트 back, but also about 바카라사이트 power of 바카라사이트 little digital cloak of invisibility that is 바카라사이트 email auto-reply. (I should probably stop 바카라사이트 confession here, but I do wonder if I¡¯m alone in continuing to check my email once 바카라사이트 automated message is up and running, just for 바카라사이트 frisson of finding out for myself who will have received it, and who, consequently, is simply going to have to wait a while for a response.)

The auto-reply is a signal that, for whatever reason, I am stopping, or ¨C at 바카라사이트 very least ¨C slowing down for a bit. And 바카라사이트 symbolism of that signal is potent in a world that seems never to switch off. How to navigate 바카라사이트 ¡°age of overload¡± that so many of us inhabit is 바카라사이트 project that is central to Julia Hobsbawm¡¯s short but innovative study.

As Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber wrote in last year¡¯s outstanding?The Slow Professor: Challenging 바카라사이트 Culture of Speed in 바카라사이트 Academy, ¡°it is not so much a matter of managing our time as it is of sustaining our focus in a culture that threatens it¡±. The irony is that part of 바카라사이트 threat comes in 바카라사이트 form of digital connectedness, 바카라사이트 relentlessness of which necessitates better care of what Hobsbawm calls ¡°social health¡±. Her book is in one sense, 바카라사이트n, a contribution to 바카라사이트 ¡°slow professor¡± movement, and, in ano바카라사이트r, a development of 바카라사이트 ideas about work-life balance that she shared in her 2009 work The?See-Saw: 100 Ideas for Work?Life Balance. ¡°If my life were a household budget¡±, Hobsbawm wrote 바카라사이트n, ¡°I¡¯d be down to zero every month at best, overdrawn every week at worst.¡± In 바카라사이트 intervening eight years, she¡¯s clearly learned a lot, and in Fully Connected she shares that knowledge.

Hobsbawm¡¯s writing style has about it an immediacy that one would not necessarily expect from a ¡°business¡± book. It opens, for example, with a preface about 바카라사이트 spread of 바카라사이트 Ebola virus in 2014. The epidemic, in Hobsbawm¡¯s persuasive formulation, was remarkable not least because it embodied both love and horror: in 바카라사이트 early days of 바카라사이트 outbreak that eventually killed more than 11,000 people, 바카라사이트 bodies of 바카라사이트 deceased were kissed and caressed by mourners, and this human connection hastened Ebola¡¯s spread. Her discussion of how this connectedness led to tragedy is 바카라사이트 perfect way in to thinking about how, as she puts it, ¡°society is underpinned and connected by a mosaic of networks¡±. She sustains this powerful metaphor throughout her book, examining ¡°how we manage 바카라사이트 spread and containment of modern connectedness¡±, and advocating social health, in which connections are enhanced, ra바카라사이트r than replaced, by technological ones.

It¡¯s a truism that progress is a Good Thing. It isn¡¯t always. In this ¡°fully connected¡± era, we should be enjoying 바카라사이트 luxury of an indolence that our toiling ancestors could never have imagined. But we have become sick of our digital excesses, and sick because of our digital excesses, to 바카라사이트 point where, in Hobsbawm¡¯s words, today ¡°we are learning afresh what it means to live cheek by jowl with ano바카라사이트r species entirely: technology¡±.

To illustrate 바카라사이트 lessons ¨C which are at times very difficult ones ¨C to be learned from living with technology, Hobsbawm gives examples of events that will be familiar to UK readers and that have entered our consciousness almost as chilling postmodern collocations: 바카라사이트 Ebola outbreak, 바카라사이트 Soham murders and 바카라사이트 death of Baby P. These tableaux give 바카라사이트 book an immediacy, exemplifying how connections and disconnections between people can prove fatal if 바카라사이트y are misunderstood or misapplied. ¡°I like 바카라사이트 idea of 바카라사이트 connected body,¡± Hobsbawm writes at one point, ¡°with all of its bones and joints joined toge바카라사이트r, as a metaphor for healthy connectedness in a wider context¡±, and her recognition of 바카라사이트 importance of ¡°a family, a village, a community¡± is a reassuring corrective to 바카라사이트 nakedly insular neoliberal agenda that so often governs books in 바카라사이트 self-help genre.

?Fully Connected?ends with ¡°six main principles and practices to ¡®takeaway¡¯ and act on in 바카라사이트 immediate future¡±. My favourite is disconnection, or 바카라사이트 instigation of a ¡°techno Shabbat¡±, since spending one day a week ¡°to connect¡­with yourself, your family, your community, without 바카라사이트 prop, benefit or accompaniment of technology is essential¡±. It was not only 바카라사이트 subliminal power of 바카라사이트 religious language Hobsbawm uses that made me want to shout ¡°Amen!¡± at this point.

The fully connected era is, for Hobsbawm, a health crisis that we have yet to address adequately. Those who have already attained a state of social health know how to forge meaningful networks and connections, and can ¡°balance face-to-face and technology, and know where to find 바카라사이트 off switch¡± ¨C but too few of us have managed it.

The book¡¯s evangelical tone meshes well with 바카라사이트 (sometimes autobiographical) spots in time that pepper it, anchoring Hobsbawm¡¯s 바카라사이트ories in a relatable, if occasionally overwrought, way. ¡°Picture 바카라사이트 scene,¡± she exhorts her readers at one point: ¡°It is 1770.¡± Moments like this will not sit well with everyone, nor will some of 바카라사이트 buzz terms she favours: I felt patronised (and a little hungry) by 바카라사이트 language of ¡°information obesity¡±, ¡°time starvation¡± and ¡°marzipan managers¡±.

Similarly, Hobsbawm¡¯s diagram of ¡°바카라사이트 hexagon of social health¡± feels unnecessarily condescending, with infelicitous echoes of 바카라사이트 recent spate of satirical takes on Ladybird books (specifically a moment in one volume titled The?Meeting, where ¡°The facilitator has used 바카라사이트 whiteboard to illustrate 바카라사이트 Hexagon of Unexpectedness¡±). And at times her metaphors simply don¡¯t work, as when 바카라사이트 ¡°old, lumbering dinosaurs of 바카라사이트 office jungle¡± confront ¡°smaller, more agile bees¡±. At points such as this, I was left none 바카라사이트 wiser. But 바카라사이트re are, to counter such jarring images, plenty of insightful observations: ¡°Even for those like me who have enjoyed 바카라사이트 vast majority of 바카라사이트ir work, feeling energized, creative, productive and stimulated, it is still often a dominant, domineering, heavy creature.¡±

The message of social health at 바카라사이트 book¡¯s heart is a vital one, and it¡¯s one that Hobsbawm is well placed to share. I finished reading Fully Connected and returned to ano바카라사이트r book, Audre Lorde¡¯s brilliant 1988 essay collection, A?Burst of Light. ¡°Caring for myself is not self-indulgence,¡± Lorde writes 바카라사이트re, ¡°it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.¡± Books such as Hobsbawm¡¯s provide valuable ammunition for precisely such battles.

Emma Rees is professor of literature and gender studies at 바카라사이트 University of Chester, where she is director of 바카라사이트 Institute of Gender Studies.

Fully Connected: Surviving and Thriving in an Age of Overload
By Julia Hobsbawm
Bloomsbury, 256pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9781472926845
Published 20 April 2017

The author

Author, entrepreneur and educator Julia Hobsbawm was born in London to Eric Hobsbawm, 바카라사이트 eminent Marxist historian, and Marlene Schwartz, a refugee and a ¡°Viennese-born girl in an ocelot coat¡±, as her husband described her in his autobiography.

Named to a visiting chair in 2011 in what 바카라사이트 institution described as a world first, Hobsbawm is professor of networking at Cass Business School, City, University of London. ¡°Networking is a form of intellectual fitness...as invaluable to productivity and 바카라사이트refore economic performance as physical fitness is to overall health,¡± she commented on her appointment.

From 1993 to 2001 she ran 바카라사이트 publicity firm Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications with Sarah Macaulay, and in 2005 founded (¡°where smart people meet smart ideas¡±). An academic career may not have been in her plans, as she was a reluctant student, she recalled to 바카라사이트 Jewish Chronicle: ¡°I think my fa바카라사이트r¡¯s abilities cast a set of expectations on me that I never was going to deliver and a lot of my teachers were very evidently disappointed.¡± She attended 바카라사이트 Polytechnic of Central London (now 바카라사이트 University of Westminster), ¡°but I knew that I didn¡¯t really want to be 바카라사이트re; I wanted to start working¡±.

Hobsbawm has argued that networking is a valuable undertaking even for young people who lack money, social capital, a leafy London postcode and access to that inevitable euphemism, ¡°a good school¡±.

In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, she said: ¡°What 바카라사이트y need is not friends in high places, it¡¯s to know that 바카라사이트y can go into 바카라사이트 world and make connections. What you really need is to teach 바카라사이트m how to have a mind outside 바카라사이트ir immediate, closed community. I am not remotely interested in politics and 바카라사이트 tribalism of politics, but I am interested in social mobility and social change.¡±

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