Will Wireless Kill Weekends?

from the get-away-day? dept

The issue of how technology is impacting our work-life balance comes up every few months, and this latest study should only pour more fuel on the fire. It actually turns out that over the past four years or so, people have been doing less work and more "life." However, with new (mostly mobile) technologies, people are expecting the balance to shift further towards work, including getting people to work when they're normally disconnected, such as on vacation and during weekends. Of course, this might not be so bad if people can learn to do a better job spreading out their work and life activities. In the past, you were expected to only work from 9 to 5 (or longer...) and then only "live" outside of that time. However, with the internet at work, and mobile technologies outside of work, it allows both sides to invade the other. As long as workers (and, more importantly, their bosses) can learn to manage the balance by allowing people to focus on which side makes the most sense at the time, it could actually make people more balanced overall. If taking care of personal stuff at work makes life easier, then that's a good thing. The problem, though, is our tendency (especially in the US) to just want to squeeze more work out of people, forgetting the whole life thing.

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