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Is Technology Killing Leisure Time?
Americans for centuries have believed that new labor saving devices will free us from the burdens of the workplace and give us more time to ponder philosophy, goof off, explore the arts, and hang around with friends and family.
So here we are at the start of the 21st Century, enjoying one of the greatest technological boom times in human history, and nothing could be further from the truth.
The very tools that were supposed to liberate us have bound us to our work (and schools) in ways that were inconceivable just a few years ago. But technology almost never does what we expect.
Almost all of us -- especially the people reading this -- have less leisure time than ever. We work harder, take fewer vacations for shorter periods of time, report more stress than almost any other demographic group and find the boundaries between work and play increasingly blurred. Computing and communications technologies are destroying the idea of privacy and leisure.
According to a new study reported in the July issue of American Demographics magazine, as the distinctions between home and the workplace fade, more and more of us go online from our offices to buy the things and perform the tasks we used to do when we got home. At first, employers were wary of workers going on the Net. But they've learned to love and encourage it, since it keeps employees chained to their desks for longer hours.
In l999, the researchers report, 19 percent of the total population had Net access at work, compared with just seven percent in l996. Employers, who now expect workers to be available for longer periods, understand that they have to let them to do their chores online. At work, Net surfers go first to news, information and entertainment sites. Then they hit search engines, marketing/corporate sites, sex sites and retailing shopping sites, in that order.
But there's a huge trade off for this convenience. Inforum's l999 Survey from the MEDSTAT group, reports American Demographics, found that adults aged 35 and younger were the most stressed people in the population. Nearly seven in 10 said they were "somewhat" to "extremely" stressed, an astonishing contrast to adults over 65: 31 percent of them said they had almost no stress in their lives at all.
More than a third of adults under the age of 25 say they don't get enough sleep most or all of the time. No wonder. More than half of them report that they didn't have time to take a vacation, according to the Travel Industry Association of America. When younger people do travel, they don't take much of a break: 42 percent of travelers who go away for just a weekend are aged 18 to 34 -- the largest share of any single demographic group. Of course, maybe they have less disposable income or have young children they can't leave for long. But if you think about people you know in this age group, it's also obvious that they have trouble disconnecting from work, thanks mostly to technology, and they're also afraid to show employers that they're not indispensable. It may also be true that openly or not, more employers expect their workers to be around all the time.
Before the Net, cell phones and Palms, the lines between work and leisure time were markedly clearer. People left their offices at a predictable time, were often completely disconnected from and out-of-touch with their jobs as they traveled to and from work, and were off-duty once they were home. That' s no longer true. Even in a competitive job market, employers expect workers to put in longer hours and to be available almost constantly via fax, cell, e-mail or other communications devices. Bosses, colleagues and family members -- lovers, buddies and spouses too -- expect instant responses to voice-and e-mail messages.
Employers have thus begun to pay the small price of allowing their round-the-clock workers to shop and communicate online, found the AD study.
The American Demographic report validates the suspicion that corporatist employers are taking advantage of new technologies and of workers' anxieties to demand longer hours and increased productivity -- the very things new technologies were supposed to liberate people from.
Although there are no known studies relating to college students and their work hours, it seems they are also bound to their desks and dorms by environments in which faculty, friends and other members of the college community increasingly do their work online. Studies of time spent on instant messaging services would probably show staggering use. And research possibilities online are boundless.
Few of us manage to buck this trend, apart from some neo-Luddites. Half of all Americans now own a cell phone, and more than 46 per cent of pleasure travelers take their phones with them when they go away, reports the Travel Industry Association. More than 18 per cent take their pagers and 6 per cent their laptops, while 10 per cent check e-mail on vacation. Younger Americans are living in a hyperactive information culture.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 40 per cent of men worked more than 40 hours a week in l998, an increase of 5 percentage points in the last two decades. As for women, 22 per cent worked more than 40 hours aweek, compared with just 14 per cent in 1979.
So it's not surprising that a l998 General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago found that more than 40 per cent of American workers say they come home from work exhausted, up from 36 per cent in l989. Young married couples report that they work an average 26 per cent more hours each year than they did 30 years ago.
Aside from long hours, the nature of work has changed. Economist and author Richard Sennett (The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism) and Joanne B. Ciulla (The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work), point out changes in the nature of work itself.
"Flexible" work projects, the growing number of part-time workers, and a culture that embraces and even celebrates continuous layoffs, down-sizings and re-engineerings have rendered almost everyone's work life stressful and unstable. Workers work harder and longer, move more often, change their work tasks more frequently, and are nevertheless constantly subject to dismissal or its threat.
This isn't what technology is supposed to be doing for us. New technologies, from genetic research to the Net, offer all sorts of benefits and opportunities. But when new tools make life more difficult and stressful rather than easier and more meaningful -- and we are, as a society, barely conscious of it -- then something has gone seriously awry, both with our expectations for technology and our understanding of how it works.
I couldn't agree more. I think that the only thing that has gone up since 30 years ago is the number of people that are habitual complainers.
My grandfather's generation lived through the depression, went to war in World War II, and basically didn't have a third of the comforts that I take for granted, and yet they somehow managed to be pretty darn optimistic about their lives, their future, and their country. His grandparents hiked clear across the U.S. cooking their meals with Buffalo poop. Compared to my forebears I wouldn't know stress if it smacked me in the face with a tomahawk.
Nowadays Americans don't really have to worry about things like invading tribes of Mongols, or the Black Plague, and so instead we worry about our stress levels. We habitually whine about how hard our life is without even realizing that pretty much the entire world would happily switch places with us.
I went to high school in Lima, Peru and if there is one thing that I learned from my time there it is that I have no room to complain. My life is not that hard, nor do my pitiful little worries amount to a hill of beans. The average American will almost certainly live longer and be more successful than 99% of the people that have ever lived on this planet, and yet all we do is complain.
Everything in moderation, eh? I'm working for a startup, and it has been made abundantly clear that days off, holidays and vacation time means no contact. None.
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I've brought a laptop on one vacation so far, and it was just to have something to dump the digital camera into. I allow myself *no* net access on the road.
Who knows how long this tech bonanza is going to continue... It may be 5 years, it may be ten, or it may pay at these ludicrous rates for the rest of our lives, although that's doubtful.
The point is that if you're going to be in this field for a long time, don't burn yourself out. It's bad enough that there are so few people with genuine experience already... If you have people killing themselves 24/7 on tech, in 4 or 5 years they're going to need to do something completely different just to remain sane.
Unplug once in a while. Take a month off from IRC and watch your RL relationships get back to a normal level. Turn off the machines at home and listen to the lack of hum... I'm willing to bet you'll actually physically notice your heart rate slowing. I know mine does.
Your heart has a specific number of beats it's going to complete before you kack. Try to savor a few of them
But there's a huge trade off for this convenience. Inforum's l999 Survey from the MEDSTAT group, reports American Demographics, found that adults aged 35 and younger were the most stressed people in the population. Nearly seven in 10 said they were "somewhat" to "extremely" stressed, an astonishing contrast to adults over 65: 31 percent of them said they had almost no stress in their lives at all.
Huh? 7 in 10 is 70 percent. That would imply that 30 percent had no stress. That's pretty darn similar to the 31 percent of those over 65 who had no stress. What's the point?
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Now for the tips to avoid having your off time fucked up.
(1) Never give your personal cell number to co-workers. If you did, leave the cell phone home on vacation, or change the number or take a different phone (for *your* use on vacation). This advice also applies to personal email.
(2) Tell co workers you're unreachable because yoiu're going on a cruise to Tahiti even if you're just going to work around the house on vacation. This reduces morons trying to **STEAL** your hard earned vacation time from you.
(3) Next, get rid of your answering machine. Once I realized that my answering only serves the caller and not me, I got rid of it. With the Caller ID box, I never answer the phone unless I recognize the number and want to answer it. 999/1000 times if it says "Out of Area"/"Unavailable" it's telemarketing scum. As for everyone else, getting ring... ring... ring... ring... endlessly with no opportunity to leave messages serves them right for bothering you. Works wonders with debt collectors wrongfully trying to collect from you too.
(4) Don't capitulate. Don't listen to office voice mail on vacation. It'll just add stress or worse, may cause you to cave and solve problems.
(5) Don't accept "deals". "Come back a day early and take another day or two later." Contiguous days off is != to the sum of its parts. Work-DayOff-Work-DayOff-Work-DayOff-Work-DayOff-Wo rk (that's 4 days off) is not the same as 3 days off in a row.
Do all of these things and know that it is RIGHT for you to do them. Your hard earned vacation time takes absolute priority over all work related issues. Now quit reading this (you're dangerously close to "doing work") in your hotel room and go back to the beach!
...of the way society has been moving for a long time. It's not built for the benefit of individuals any longer, but for the benefit of corporations. Think about (in the US) the processes of government and economic participation, and ask yourself where the balance of power lies between individuals and corporations. Is it any surprise then that the benefits from technological advance have gone almost exclusively to the corporations rather than the individual workers themselves? I predict that unless and until some kind of revolution takes place, workers will continue to see thier leisure time eroded and their freedom dimished. Until that time, it will not get any better in terms of true quality and meaning of life.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD