Nicholas Craig column

Apr 27 2007 By Nicholas Craig, The Journal

There's not enough face-to-face business going on. Instead of meeting to talk over problems, we take cowardly refuge in emails, or leave lengthy voicemails.

These create a series of staccato monologues between two people, the opposite of constructive conversation. It is all too easy to hide behind the speedy solutions provided by new technology.

We're drowning in data. E-mails, text messages, mobile phone calls, TV, websites. Are they giving us knowledge or frying our brains?

As the amount of information increases, our attention span shrinks. Easy access to information encourages us to think and act short-term, rather than taking a big breath to look at the bigger picture.

Apparently 800MB of information is produced for every person on the planet. Even so, we're no nearer the answers to big problems and I'm concerned that fewer people have the courage to think independently.

People prefer to consult the internet's vast library of data before making decisions. As a result, quirky, idiosyncratic solutions to problems are far less likely to be put forward. Working on internet time is making us all more like grey conformists.

High-speed information technologies, while very useful in many ways, have robbed us of thinking time - the necessary silences in which to reflect on who we are and where we're going.

Can you remember the emotional high you experienced when you had to work hard to find the answer to a complicated problem?

If you find it hard to get information it sticks. Before the internet came along, just the achievement of solving a problem led to emotional euphoria. Now that we have the internet's easy encyclopedia we rely far less on our own abilities.

A day a week without recourse to internal emails is being promoted by some companies. I'm all for it. Our offices may all be tending towards open plan accessibility, but computers keep our heads looking at keyboards rather than at colleagues.

Communicating the low-tech way is refreshing, spontaneous and enlightening.

It doesn't require spellcheck or copying in of others. It is a far more creative way to converse than by computer, and I'd like to campaign for a face to face Friday for all companies, where we make the effort to meet and exchange views with our colleagues in real time, unhindered by ether.

• Nicholas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton law firm