The Digital Vacation: a Fifth of Americans Bring Laptops

June 8, 2007 — -- David Ulrich works for a start-up firm that provides companies with computer technical support. So he knows all about the digital revolution.

He also lives it, even in his time off. He tells of the trip he and his wife, a lawyer, took with their children to Costa Rica.

"We should have been a million miles away — but I took a laptop, my wife took a laptop, I had my BlackBerry, we brought our cell phones," he said (over a bad cell phone connection). "Between the two of us, we had an electronics store worth of equipment."

He had reason. "I can tell you that every one of our clients is absolutely dependent on their equipment," he said. "They need to be able to reach me."

Millions of Americans — make that tens of millions and perhaps more — have shared his experience. An AP/Ipsos poll shows a fifth of Americans surveyed said they had taken laptops on their last vacation, and 40 percent had checked their e-mail while they were ostensibly off. Half had checked their voice mail.

Is this your idea of getting away?

Staying in Touch Because You Can

"This is not a work-related phenomenon. This is a communications-related phenomenon," said Geoffrey Godby of Penn State University. "A lot of people with absolutely no need for laptops and cell phones still bring them along on vacation."

Godby is a professor of leisure studies — a broad field, he said, because "I get to study what people choose to do when they have freedom." He also consults for companies in the travel business, including hotel chains that feel the need to equip their rooms with wi-fi connections and extra electric outlets so that people can charge all their batteries.

Even if they're supposed to be charging their personal batteries, not their portable ones.

"There are people who become so enchanted with their work that they really don't want to be away from it," said John Robinson, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. "If they enjoy doing it, who's to complain?"

Godby, for one, is cautious. "When a new technology appears, people exercise no discretion at first in using it," he said. "It was that way with television — there were people watching the test patterns at night. It's the same way with cell phones and laptops."

The Escape

In the meantime, the entire idea of a vacation has changed. "In the days of the old style vacation, one was incommunicado, literally," said Godby. "You left your environment in an absolute way."

Earlier technologies whittled away at that. "I remember I was off in the wilderness, out in the middle of nowhere," said Robinson, "and I looked for a pay phone so I could check my messages."

But wireless, portable, universal communication — especially when each e-mail message is fast and free — has created a radical change.

Godby offered some practical advice for people.

"Don't use the devices we're talking about without thinking about it first," he said. "It's like dieting. It's not easy. Think about it each time you do it."

In time, social scientists say, new social rules will develop for how reachable people have to be. In the future, it will probably be easier to turn off that BlackBerry or Palm Pilot. But that time is not here yet.

Ulrich, the computer consultant, recalls his last vacation. "I don't feel I missed Costa Rica," he said, "but I do feel that I missed getting away. There's no such thing anymore as getting away."