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Jeremy Heigh went on his "low-tech sabbatical" last summer deep in the British Columbia mountains with trepidation.
For the 32-year-old investment manager and passionate blogger, there were too many e-mails to answer, too much data to crunch, too many blog entries to log to comprehend escaping for the 10-day canoe trip with relatives.
Then one day in the solitude of the woods, it hit him like a virus: He was so connected to cyberspace that he had lost his connection to the world.
"I didn't notice until I was out in the bush how weak and flimsy I felt," Mr. Heigh said from his Edmonton office. "I felt like I was full of water. By the end of the trip, I could feel the strength growing inside me."
Ronny Ko is one of many who, overwhelmed by the constant barrage of e-mails and cellphone calls, decided to either cut it out of their lives temporarily or scale back their use for some sanity. (Laura Leyshon/Globe and Mail)
Overwhelmed by the volume of information spilling from technological gadgets intended to enhance communication and simplify life, some workers have started making a conscious choice to limit their reliance on the devices - or to take a break from them altogether to clear their heads. Call it the tech sabbatical.
That e-mail can be an addictive tool - the ubiquitous BlackBerry device didn't earn its "CrackBerry" nickname for nothing - is well documented. A survey conducted for America Online in 2005 found that 77 per cent of respondents had more than one e-mail account and that accessing e-mail was the first thing 41 per cent did in the morning. Sixty per cent reported that being on vacation was no reason to not check their inbox.
Mr. Heigh, who foretold of his "sabbatical" on his blog, Siftstar.com, with a curt entry of "No Net. No phones. No batteries," still depends on wireless communications, but said he no longer fears putting them aside temporarily.
"It kind of unlocked me from feeling like I had to feed this part of a cyberidentity that you end up creating by always being on the Web, on e-mail, and on cellphones and everything," said Mr. Heigh, who is married and has a toddler. "It showed me that breaking that didn't matter to me that much."
While cellphones and e-mail clearly facilitate communication, they have had the paradoxical effect for many people of creating a conflict between work and personal time.
Ronny Ko found that out the hard way.
As a co-founder of Bityard.com, a website devoted to the "always on" world of technology, Mr. Ko practised what he preached. He received and answered e-mail messages around the clock, and kept apprised of breaking tech news on his Palm Pilot while standing at crosswalks.
"I Don't Want to be Reached!" screamed the headline of an editorial he wrote on his website in April, 2002, which started a chain reaction of dramatically scaling back his attachment to digital culture.
"It's kind of ironic that I had to switch myself off," said Mr. Ko, 34, an accountant at a Vancouver building supplies manufacturing company who now maintains the website only as a hobby. "That was the intent of Bityard, to be the always connected person. But I found myself too connected."
The discord is more pronounced among individuals who fail to establish boundaries for themselves, says Joerg Dietz, an associate professor of organizational behaviour at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario.
"There are some folks who just do not manage with their BlackBerry turned off," said Prof. Dietz, who has noted a rise in complaints about technology burnout from students and colleagues. "They get home from work, having dinner with their families, and then the BlackBerry comes on.
"It creates a tone of spontaneous interruptions that, I think, are very distracting and potentially destructive over time."
He recommends setting "technology-free times or zones" and adhering to their limits. For instance, renting a cottage without a phone or Internet access.
Sometimes, though, the burden becomes so great that it is too late to set limits.
That was the case for U.S. venture capitalist Fred Wilson, who caused a sensation on the Internet in the spring when he declared "e-mail bankruptcy" on his blog about technology, announcing that he was giving up trying to respond to all the messages that had piled up in his inbox.
"I am so far behind on e-mail that I am declaring bankruptcy," he wrote. "If you've sent me an e-mail (and you aren't my wife, partner or colleague), you might want to send it again. I am starting over."
Few people take such drastic measures, but some disaffected by the burst of information technology say they have embraced a relaxed approach to the more trivial correspondence that tends to pile up in their inboxes.
"You don't have to be in constant touch," said Mr. Ko. "E-mail can wait. There is always another day."
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