Life is very complicated. So why make it more complicated? I run my own business and when I’m not in the office, I’m not in the office. I use my cell phone only when I need to call AAA. I don’t give it out to my clients. So leave a message and I’ll call you back. Really, what can I do for you while I’m driving a car or on the weekend I’m with my family? Leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Emergency? You shouldn’t calling me, dial 911… Sounds crazy but it really isn’t. Your told you have be ready 24/7 but you really don’t. So go enjoy an uninterrupted life and leave your cell phone home next time you go out. You’ll be amazed how the world can get along without being connected to you…..

Most of the people I know who are on Twitter are either journalists, in PR, or in sales. This is why you hear so much about Twitter despite its low relevance to the larger society.

My impression is that it really is a bubble, interesting as it may be for participants. Glad to hear these guys are taking stock.

I think reporters spend too much time in the office. The editor's next experiment should be to ban his reporters from the office for a week. The ones who wind up in starbucks for a week should be fired.

The one thing I like about email interviews is how it saves me the time transcribing recorded interviews afterward, which is an awful painstaking process.

But, some of the most touching and honest interviews I've ever had have been those where the person has either welcomed me into their home or their place of work.

Then I've had the chance to also see them interact with family and co-workers, and to see them in their surroundings, and be able to observe the little details of their homes or offices (e.g. the photo that Shashi Tharoor used to have hanging in office at the UN, of him and Kofi Annan in front of the Taj Mahal, etc.)

Those are small yet valuable glimpses that you will never get from an email interview.

What hasn't been reflected in your guests' observations is that often their "sources" or "targets" prefer e-mail interaction precisely because it avoids the dangers of unplanned and unfiltered responses to reporters' questions.

Please ask the Washington Post writers to give us the link to the actual full story about this experiment. The Marc Fisher column, below, is only a brief about it, not the full story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052701970.html

Social media make lazy journalists more lazy and good journalists more productive.

It used to be a basic journalism tenet that we didn't submit questions to sources/interviewees before the interview. But isn't email just that?

I'm 40 and I've gone retro. No TV, no Facebook, no Twitter, no iPhone and I feel more much informed than those with all the gadgets.

Did they set up the "auto reply" on their email accounts to alert people that they were off-line.

[[A journalist
On second thought, disregard everything I said. I'm addicted as anyone on the Internet, and let's face it, "journalists," unless part of some ill-conceived experiment by their bored boss, are not giving up their BlackBerry's any time soon. It's too much of who they are.

Jun. 08 2010 01:28 PM]]

...troll.

As a reporter, I find it's increasingly tough to get sources to talk on the phone -- preferring to interact via email. How'd they deal with that??

Also, I hope the WaPo gave them two days off to catch up on all the email that piled during the week!

On second thought, disregard everything I said. I'm addicted as anyone on the Internet, and let's face it, "journalists," unless part of some ill-conceived experiment by their bored boss, are not giving up their BlackBerry's any time soon. It's too much of who they are.

...one more thing, I would sign onto this experiment if it meant that I wouldn't have to hear the incredibly annoying sound of blackberry keys clicking. I am at a loss to think of a more alienating sound.

Frederick makes some good points, especially about the need to feel validated. Everyone who has ever commented on a web page immediately refreshes the page to see that the comment got posted - right, Frederick?

Before blackberries, reporters had basic cellphones, and before that we had pagers. We've come a long way in a decade.

All these new tools are an extreme time-saver. (I remember getting a page and then driving around to find a working pay phone...kind of like those old episodes of Cagney and Lacey where the ladies needed to call the station and one would say to the other, "You got a dime?") I also don't need someone to read names and addresses to me over the phone...send me an email.

The tools also keep people more honest. I remember having managers who would try to skunk reporters by claiming they sent a page to which the reporter never responded. You can't do that so easily with email.

I'll be interested to hear how reporters managed without the internet for a week.

"Hey, Lacey, you got a dime?"

I am neither a psychiatrist, published author, or social media blogger, yet I'll tell you the dynamic at work here that not one of these experts mentioned. People who check their e-mail constantly, or refresh their Twitter feed constantly, are involved in the same kind of experiment as those monkeys who kept on hitting the bar to feed them cocaine until they died.
There is a huge jolt of social approval upon seeing a new e-mail, whether it be from a close friend, a trifling acquaintance, or anyone for that matter. It is a sign that the person is popular on some level. This is no different than junior high school, where everyone's adrenaline system was taught that being seen in the hallway with a group of friends meant approval, and therefore got a revivifying dose of approval brain chemicals.
The people who check email, and Twitter, and check Facebook updates endlessly and multiple times within minutes, are hitting the cocaine bar as fast as the monkeys. They are looking for the jolt of the chemical coctail that is provided each time a new e-mail is received, or a endorsing ring of the Pavlovian bell is heard with a retweet on Twitter or a friending on Facebook. Essentially, these families sitting around the breakfast table that the New York Times loves to show, you know the ones where everyone is looking down at their digital device and no one is looking at each other -- those are photos of the monkeys hitting the bars for their cocaine.
Of course, that's distracting and wears on the brain. Duh.