The Techno Sweat Shop

For Thing #10 in the OCL Web Challenge, there's a front page article by Matt Richtel in today's New York Times about the stressful life of bloggers who get paid by the post. It's currently the most blogged article on the New York Times web site and the most e-mailed article in the Technology section. Richtel writes of three well known bloggers who have recently had major heart attacks. Two, aged 60 and 50, died. The third, 41 years old, survived his coronary (so far). These bloggers worked in the highly competitive technology blogging world, which requires 24 hour committment. Richtel writes,

"To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style. "

Being plugged into the world via the Internet means that there is literally an endless stream of data to view, process and communicate about. There is no natural filter or brake mechanism. How many of us have gone online just to do one little thing and looked up 2 hours later, wondering where the time went? Combine this aspect of the Web with a competitive, capitalist economy and you've got a store where the doors never close. We are Open All Night. To turn off may be interpreted as lazy, and, even worse, it means you are out of the loop. You are missing out on the next big thing that everyone is talking about. How are we going to manage this particular technological challenge? I can foresee Computer Turnoff Weeks in our future.