Boundaries in an Overconnected World

Setting Limits to Preserve Your Focus, Privacy, Relationships, and Sanity

Anne Katherine

• Publisher: New World Library
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781608681907
• eBook ISBN: 9781608681914
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Aspects in Computer Science
• Index: Psychology

Over the past decade, 24/7 connectivity has given us not only convenience and fun but worries about privacy, interruptions while working or trying to enjoy family or other downtime, and new compulsions — from shopping to tweeting and cute-cat watching. Anne Katherine, one of the authors who brought boundary setting to a mass audience, has now written a book on how to set healthy boundaries with technology. The first of its kind, this resource doesn't suggest anyone go "cold turkey." Instead, it helps people make social media, smart phones, and other innovations work for, rather than against, them. Readers learn to protect themselves online in every way — from predators and data mining as well as time-devouring friends and acquaintances — with an emphasis on preserving and optimizing meaningful personal connections. Anyone who has ever wondered if their cute little gadget was actually an enemy invader will welcome Katherine's strategies for ensuring "that your life is truly your own."

PART I

BOUNDARY BASICS

Chapter 1

BOUNDARIES IN A BOUNDARYLESS WORLD

We now travel through an expanded universe, moving at startling speeds and negotiating vast magnitudes of miniature bits of information. We are connected not only with nearly every other computer on the planet but also with millions of minds holding a wide range of values, perspectives, needs, and goals.

The sheer number of potential connections is so great — both for information coming in and information going out — that we let our minds pretend that an email sent to twenty of our closest friends will stop in those twenty computers. But if even one recipient finds something worth passing on to Hateful Hattie — and if Hattie takes snippets of your missive out of context and sends it to her list so that her cousin Callous, a stranger to you, posts your words on a wall or in a chat room — your comments could offend someone in Singapore within minutes. You could then be Googled, found, sworn at, criticized, and targeted with offers of hemorrhoid cream and weird sexual devices.

Now that the entire electronic universe hovers within our phones, tablets (e.g., iPads), and computers, a world full of interruptions and intrusions is pinging toward us. We have a whole new set of obligations: people to (be)friend, emails to manage, texts to answer. It’s easy to feel as if you’ll never catch up.

If ever boundaries were needed, they are needed now, in this universe without boundaries.

This book will show you how to put virtual fences into the virtual world so that you can get your time back, and so that you can focus on what matters to you most. You will see how to free your energy for your own creative pursuits, for your beloved people, for fun and hobbies, and for sheer peace of mind.

What Is a Boundary?

A boundary is a limit that protects the integrity, autonomy, or wholeness of an entity. If your life feels out of control, unmanageable, or chaotic in any way, the right boundary will improve it.

You, an individual, are an entity. You and your best friend are also an entity — a friendship. Your family is an entity, too, and so is your unit or department at work.

It’s obvious that your skin creates a physical boundary, inside of which is you and outside of which is not-you. Without that boundary you would die, too exposed to the dangers of the world and without a container for the structures that require insulation and protection.

Your best friendship also needs a boundary in regard to what comes in and what goes out. If you reveal your friend’s private information (letting too much out) or keep yourself too closed off to your friend (holding too much in), the friendship’s integrity will be threatened. Without a healthy boundary, a friendship can also die.

A Boundary Is a Regulator

A boundary regulates the flow of energy and information coming in and going out. Imagine that the following circle represents you.

You send energy and information into the world. And you receive energy and information from outside yourself.

Have you ever met someone who is totally closed off? A pry bar can’t get anything out of Blocked Bart. He gives minimal answers to questions. His face is shut. He contributes nothing to an interaction. No matter what you say, it appears to bounce off his surface.

Which of the following circles represents Blocked Bart’s boundary?

It’s obvious, isn’t it? Boundary C is thick and solid. Energy and information are trapped inside. Fresh information and the energy that can come from human interaction are bounced off the surface; they can’t get in.

Imagine you were telling Bart about the joyful moment when you fell in love. How far would you get before your own energy petered out? Imagine having a discussion about a new candidate for president — a truly honest, brilliant, brave, capable person with a good chance at rescuing our sad country from its dilemmas. Do you think you’d have much influence on Bart?

Contrast Bart with Leaky Lucy, a neighbor you meet occasionally at the grocery. Lucy tells you everything. You know her entire family tree, that her husband has a hiccup at the end of his snore, that she once stole a piece of toast from a hospitalized man’s breakfast tray (she was very hungry). She tried to tell you about the funny shape of her child’s turd, but you walked away as fast as you could, forgetting that you meant to buy a pumpkin.

Which following circle represents Leaky Lucy’s boundary?

Clearly boundary A has holes in it.

Lucy doesn’t filter outgoing information, and her energy isn’t contained. She doesn’t discriminate between what’s appropriate to the relationship and what isn’t. And everything she’s exposed to enters her conversation with others.

What would happen if you emailed Lucy a secret? If you told Lucy not to forward the email or tell anyone what it said, could you trust her to respect your request? (If she isn’t able to keep her family’s private information to herself, do you think she’ll be able to protect yours?)

Consider your own family members. Which ones resemble Leaky Lucy? When you forward emails to your family, do your Leaky Lucys get copies?

Do you have any leaky friends? Are they among the recipients of your email about your lovely day with your friend who is in the witness protection program?

It’s worth thinking about, isn’t it? Give a day to thinking about the boundary permeability of the people you text, email, Friend, and visit in chat rooms.

The New Reality

The cyberworld is infinite. A message or tweet can live there forever. At one push of a button, your thought can rocket around the world in seconds.

Many of us start our days on our home computers, leave home carrying our smartphones and a tablet or e-book reader, get back on a computer at work or school, then go into our evenings with at least a smartphone. We are always connected.

There can be some comfort in this. You can always call for help. If plans change, you can be notified. You can settle a debate about who played right field in the 1960 Series, or whether the first film of The Great Gatsby, with Warner Baxter, Lois Wilson, and William Powell, won an Oscar.

You can also be interrupted on a frequent basis. Your phone can’t discriminate between an emergency message and a boring friend who wants to chat about her hangnail. Your live experience with the flesh-and-blood friend sitting across from you can be punctuated with texts, calls, and instant messages (IMs), which will affect the boundary of your friendship.

You can feel wired in this wireless world. You are always available to everyone.

This constant connectivity has created a boundaryless world. Yet we are not its prisoners. Each of us can calm this chaos for ourselves.

Chapter 2

BOUNDARY FLEXIBILITY

Can you think of a circumstance in which it would be appropriate cto toughen up your boundary so that it resembles Blocked Bart’s boundaries? In which of the following situations would that make sense?

•Texting your daughter about your husband’s great golf game

•Texting your daughter about your ex-husband’s (her father’s) adoration of his newly born son with his second wife

It’s a foregone conclusion. The golf game gets a green light. However, spreading information about your ex’s focus on a child in his new family could hurt your daughter, especially if he is a slapdash father to her.

What about texting that message to your sister, a mild Leaky Lucy? Can you trust that she won’t someday mention this to your daughter?

Clearly, your boundary has to be different for each of these two subjects. You can sing like a birdie to anyone about the golf game. That message isn’t personal or confidential. It won’t harm you, your husband, or any recipients of the information.

Your ex-husband becoming an involved father after years of neglect toward his first-born child — that’s a different story. It has the power to hurt your daughter, to create an issue between her and her half-brother, and to fan a flame in her relationship with her dad.

But I’ll bet you’ve known people who have done that very thing — who ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: Connected, but Not Protected
• Part I: Boundary Basics
• Part II: Boundary Violations
• Part III: Protecting Yourself and Others
• Part IV: Cyberspace Trickery
• Part V: Intimacy
• Part VI: Group Cyber-Boundaries
• Gratitude
• Appendix A: Your Position within Cultural Norms
• Appendix B: Your Personal Limit Setter
• Appendix C: Resources for Developing Intimacy Skills
• Endnotes
• Glossary
• Index
• About the Author