Several years ago, I met with a student affairs leader from a prominent American university who had just unveiled a new first- year undergraduate leadership program. The new program consisted of a first year spent in London, in which students would be exposed to a broad array of leadership activities while also taking their undergraduate courses. Not a bad setup for first- year undergraduates! I was impressed by the effort dedicated to designing this firstyear course, though skeptical.

Should first-year undergraduates really spend their time thinking about cultivating so-called leadership skills? Is thinking about the cultivation of a “personal network” perhaps not what an undergraduate education is for, at least in the first year? Are there not alternative aims that should take precedence? These questions all came to mind in this meeting. Attempting some British humor, I remarked not unsarcastically that the program seemed conducive to creating “mini-executives,” to which my counterpart responded—with complete sincerity—“Exactly!”

A leadership program for first- year students seemed unnecessarily professional, encouraging students to think of themselves as executives well before this should ever take place. Second, what struck me was my colleague's acceptance as to the need for such a program, there appearing to be little critical reflection about why an undergraduate leadership course is worth pursuing.

Beyond all of this, however, the meeting represented a much larger issue that many in their twenties and thirties struggle with in the modern world: the need to constantly be “on.” That is, to always show their best selves— this reflected in the idea of becoming a mini- executive. It is the idea that we must present ourselves as polished executives in whatever we do. Not to partake in this game is seen as falling behind as others push forward. Nonparticipation is perceived as missing out on career opportunities.

In this chapter, I explore the work of Sherry Turkle, Andrew Sullivan and others in order to shed light on the hyperconnectedness that is now characteristic of the modern world. Together, academic sources and first- person narratives provide a sense of what hyperconnectedness is, as well as what it does to our lives without us necessarily perceiving the consequences.