In our modern age of smart phones, text messages, video calling, and email, a growing segment of the population is beginning to take more of their work home with them. Whether by text messaging co-works about a project, frequently checking corporate email for updates, or by being at the immediate beck and call of their employer. When workers clock out and go home for the day they are no longer truly off the clock. With the widespread adoption of these new technologies into the work place, the line between home and work has become increasingly blurry. Due to this people are no longer getting time to relax and decompress from their busy days. This lack of downtime leads to a decrease in the quality of both work and home life.
It is hard to imagine that being constantly stressed and thinking about work would be good for your family life; yet when companies and the current job market push people to be constantly wired to work, that is precisely what happens. The recent New York Times article, “Who’s the Boss, You or Your Gadget?” features numerous anecdotes of these work intrusions into our home lives. One of the stories discusses a woman working on her smart phone while in labor, and another mentions employees who were so preoccupied with work that they constantly checked their corporate email accounts while on vacation. This article included another story about a man who took his children to a concert and then ducked out to finish working on a task for a client. The man thus gave up irreplaceable family time and left his children unsupervised in a busy public place packed with strangers. The ages of the children were not given in the article.
While increasing productivity is undoubtedly necessary to be successful in the modern workplace, at what point do we say enough is enough and stop focusing only on our work? Is maximizing our productivity at the expense of our home lives and mental health really worth it? I for one don’t think it is. After all, what is the point of being successful if you don’t have anyone to share it with???
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3 comments:
Insightful piece. A lot of our discussion in class has focused on just the user. We normally do not talk about the ramifications of one person's social technology use. I definitely agree with your post and I think our work culture needs change.
Mobile technologies create so much pressure to be efficient all the time. The story about the woman who was working while in labor is particularly striking; hospitalization is one of the few excuses for not working that is still inarguably legitimate.
I wonder if this parallels what's happening with mobile technologies used for social purposes. Since people are increasingly expected to be constantly connected, maybe it is becoming an obligation similar to that of work. I wonder if we'll start to see women in labor responding to texts because they feel so pressured to keep their friends entertained and connected.
This topic is actually very close to me, and I can truly relate to it.
Since I remember myself, my dad was always a "workaholic", which back then meant staying at work until 9 or even 10 pm, which for a little girl meant not seeing him at all. However, in the past couple years, thanks to the iPhone, my dad comes back home and hangs out with our family, yet constantly connected to his phone.
Now, you tell me because I haven't decided yet what is better, the good old phoneless days or current life where people depend on their phones? tough choice.
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