Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [2]
The problem can be solved by learning bit literacy, a new set of skills for managing bits. Those who attain these skills will surmount the obstacles of overload and rise to the top of their professions, even as they enjoy a life with less stress, greater health, and more time for family and friends. Bit literacy makes people more effective today, even as it equips them for the future.
But most users have no idea that they need to learn new skills, since they already know how to use the computer. For a long time, users have only been taught “computer literacy,” the set of common actions in software: clicking buttons, selecting menus, opening and closing files. These skills were sufficient in the pre-Internet world of the 1980s, when computers were mostly used as glorified typewriters. But those skills are sorely inadequate in the age of bits. That old worldview is obsolete.
Today the computer and all its software are much, much less important than the bits that they operate on. Bits, after all, are no longer caged inside the computer. They flow—from computers to other computers and devices of all kinds, surging across the Internet in wild arcs at every moment; flowing out of computers, out of cameras, out of phones, out of PDAs, and into inboxes, onto Web pages, onto hard drives, momentarily at rest, awaiting their next trip across the world. Bits, not software, are what’s most important today.
The world has changed, but most people haven’t caught up yet. Millions of technology users are trying to survive in the new world of bits with only the skills of computer literacy. They know how to send an e-mail and print a document, but they’re powerless against the avalanche of incoming bits. Without managing their bits, users are constantly buried; not because bits are a bad or destructive force (far from it), but because users aren’t applying the right skills or the right mindset.
Despite having occupations outside the technology field, many people are finding their daily work and life greatly affected by their relationship to bits. I recently met a woman who works as an analyst for a large non-profit organization, focusing on global poverty. She is well outside the technology field, and yet she constantly feels distracted and overloaded by bits. She told me that she feels the need to check e-mail whenever she gets home from work, and on weekends and vacations, too. Her case is not unusual. Bits have invaded practically every occupation, nearly every aspect of communication, commerce, logistics, and entertainment. Bits have arrived, they’re not going away, and we must learn how to live with them.
Some people mistakenly try to engage all the bits, all the time, with an “always-on” lifestyle. For example, a familiar sight in airports these days is Busy Man. He’s the one with the latest device in hand, scrolling through messages, or barking into a cell phone as he dashes through the terminal, oblivious to everyone and everything around him—the picture of stress and anxiety. On some level, Busy Man likes acting this way because it proves he’s important. The more bits he drowns in, the more urgent his work becomes; and urgency, to him, equates to importance. It also offers him a good excuse if he misses a meeting or acts rudely—he was “maxed out,” after all, when it happened. Despite how it may appear, working in such a way is neither effective nor sustainable. Urgency and haste are not the way to manage bits properly.
Other people react passively to the influx of bits in their lives, perhaps not even aware of it as an issue to address. No one taught them differently, so they can’t be blamed for acquiescing, idly watching their inbox fill up with thousands of e-mails. But passivity is not a solution. As bits accumulate, the user gradually begins to feel out of control, never quite caught