Interventions for the Overly Connected
Tikva Morowati
NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program

Research
• The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz
• “Crackberry” families

Research: Conversational Interviews
• Social Connectors: Actively form new connections
between other people
• The Hyperconnected: Heavily connected, online lifestyle

Social Connectors

Managing Availability
• 2 day email response rule
• Accept lack of reply
• Ways to not be at work when at home

The Hyperconnected

Process: How did I create the Interventions?
1. Initiated Conversation
2. Asked questions and listened
3. Looked for an opportunity to suggest an intervention
4. The other person created an intervention

Intervention No. 1
Problem: Distracted by 24/7 AIM use.
Impact: Work suffered
Intervention: To go offline for a week.

Intervention No. 1
About 10 minutes after I agreed to not have AIM for a week,
I freaked out.
I signed on for like a minute... to tell a couple friends what I
was doing. After which they said ‘well what are you doing
here!!! sign off!’.

Intervention No. 1
The realization that I was using AIM as this tool of
procrastination made me a lot more aware of my actions.
Since taking that break from AIM, I’ve come back to being
online a lot of the time, but actually, not quite as much as I
was before.

Intervention No. 2
Problem: No personal space & lots of responsibilities to others.
Impact: Overwhelmed
Intervention: To be alone & write down distracting thoughts.

Intervention No. 2
I do an unnatural amount of emailing, telephoning, putting out fires, etc. for a little
human. I do build up a lot of thoughts of people I need to tell something or an email I
need to send. It never goes away.
I have intermittent thesis freak-out sessions where I can’t work because I overwhelm
myself with thoughts of everything that needs to get done.

Intervention No. 2
I realized that I just wanted to get rid of all these thoughts so I could
think… I spent about 30 minutes by myself just “putting” each one of
these burning thoughts that came up into this wooden bottle.”
There’s something about knowing that the thought isn’t going
anywhere but that I don’t have to do anything with it either.”

Intervention No. 3
Problem: Is physically on the computer “too much”
Impact: Doesn’t spend time with herself & face-to-face time
Intervention: To turn Skype off for one week (+ phone + laptop)

Intervention No. 3
I found it sort of a disappointment actually.
My presence was not really missed from
what I can tell. You know, I expected to
have them try to reach out to me more...

Intervention No. 3
I decided to go off IM as well as
turning my phone off during
‘business hours’ and only check
messages at night.”

Intervention No. 3
I felt like I was on vacation,
I didn’t feel the expectation of having to be connected
and today I sit here without AIM on or my cell phone on
or Skype on and I feel as if life is quiet again.

Intervention No. 3
My relationships are shifting
dynamically because of my choices...
I am forced to talk to people face to
face, to spend time finding someone I
care about to say I love you in person.

The Future

Thank You
Michael Ang, Fred Benenson, Eric Beug, danah boyd, Matthew Burton, Red Burns,
Ben Cerveny, Caleb Clark, Fernanda Cohen, Christian Croft, Rob Faludi,
Ben Goldhirsh, Elizabeth Goodman, Sarah Grant, Heather Greer, Jury Hahn,
Justin Hall, Nancy Hechinger, Pablos Hoffman, Michael Horan, Tom Igoe, Matt
Jones, Ryan Junell, Josh Klein, Jeff LeBlanc, Dina Kaplan, Raffi Krikorian, Bre Pettis,
Marianne Petit, David Pescovitz, Charles Pratt, Felipe Ribeiro, Britta Riley,
Christin Roman, Danny Rozin, Christian Schaal, Andrew Schneider, Clay Shirky,
Linda Stone, Alice Tang, Phil Torrone, Timo Veikkola, Tucker Viemeister, Matt Webb,
Leah Wechsler, Ethan Zuckerman
& my ITP family
& my parents and Ya’el -- my Mom is in the audience!!