2020-2 Text 3 "THE SERVANT" (1963) is one of those films that it is impossible to forget. The servantexploits his master’s weaknesses until he turns the tables: the story ends with the a cringing masterministering to a lordly servant. It is hard to watch it today without thinking of another awkwardrelationship—the one between business folk and their smartphones. Smart devices are sometimes empowering. They put a world of information at our fingertips. But formost people the servant has become the master. Not long ago only doctors were on call all the time.Now everybody is. Bosses think nothing of invading their employees' free time. Work invades thehome far more than domestic chores invade the office. Hyperconnectivityexaggeratesthedeclineofcertaintyandthegeneralcultof flexibility.Smartphones make it easier for managers to change their minds at the last moment. Employees findit ever harder to distinguish between “on-time” and “off-time”—and indeed between real work andmake-work. None of this is good for businesspeople’s marriages or mental health. It may be bad forbusiness, too. When bosses change their minds at the last minute, it is hard to plan for the future. How can we reap the benefits of connectivity without becoming its slaves? One solution is digitaldieting. Banning browsing before breakfast can reintroduce a small amount of civilization. Banningtexting at weekends or, say, on Thursdays, can really show the iPhone who is boss. The problem with this approach is that it works only if you live on a desert island or at the bottomof a lake. Leslie Perlow of Harvard Business School argues that for most people the only way tobreak the 24/7 habit is to act collectively rather than individually. One of the world’s most hard-working organizations, the Boston Consulting Group, introduced rules about when people wereexpected to be offline," and encouraged them to work together to make this possible. Eventually itforced people to work more productively while reducing burnout. MsPerlow’s advice should be taken seriously. The problem of hyperconnectivity will only getworse, as smartphones become smarter and young digital natives take over the workforce. Butultimately it is up to companies to outsmart the smartphones by insisting that everyone turn themoff from time to time.