Slashdot Mirror
How the Smartphone Killed the Three-day Weekend
An anonymous reader writes "As we in the U.S. settle in for Memorial Day weekend, this article points out how our cultural addiction to technology is making it less of a vacation than it used to be. 'The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensation — or even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors' questions.' Even for those of us who don't have any work to do over the weekend, we'll probably end up reading all of our work-related emails as they roll in, and take time out of our day to think about what's going on — to the detriment of our weekend activities: 'A study at the University of California, San Francisco, found that new experiences fail to become long-term memories unless brains have downtime for review.' I imagine it's even worse for your average Slashdotter, who's likely plugged in to more technology at home and at work. How can we make our employers understand that downtime needs to remain downtime? 'It took labor unions 100 years to fight for nights and weekends off, some say, while smartphones took them away in about three years.'"
...posting to Slashdot.
I think I'll go investigate this "outside" that I keep hearing about.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
...as far as I can remember. :p
What took away the three day weekends is having unreasonable deadlines... and wanting to keep a job.
Has nothing to do with a smartphone.
Hey, they can be turned off. I recommend it. I remember moving from college with a networked mainframe (any one remember Wylbur?) to a research site which had a PDP 11/34 in one of the building that I didn't have access to and some Wang computers. I went through withdrawal for months. We did get pc computers networks etc, but I still can walk away at the end the day. Sure I may turn the computer on at home and check slashdot, pay some bills, or I may give it a couple days to check that email. Stay in control!
(this is NOT a troll)
As a person (senior management) who has been told by his CEO "I don't care about what happens to the employees, I care about my company making money," I don't see there is anything you can do to get 'companies' to recognize the value of vacations... other than quitting and making them scramble to find someone else they can screw over. Sadly, the perception of vacations, much like IT and paid training in general, is that it is a drain on the company (doesn't produce IMMEDIATE revenue but DOES result in IMMEDIATE costs), and if it was possible to run the company without it, most companies would do so in a heart beat. Of course, those companies are often hell-holes to work in and fail on a regular basis.
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
Why do we keep posting this FUD? People have fretted about their jobs on weekends forever. Checking your e-mail is a smaller opportunity cost than walking past your artisan shop or out to your fields after church but plenty of people did it even then. Don't blame your smartphone, blame your own unwillingness to focus your attention elsewhere.
We have an on call rotation at work, and I am plugged into my work smartphone when on call. That's it. When I'm not on call, the smartphone stays at home (and gets ignored while I'm at home).
There are those who get forced into spending weekend time on work, and I do have a lot of sympathy for those people (though I would encourage them to find a job with an employer who isn't abusing them). But a lot of people who spend weekend time on work don't do so because they'll get fired or anything... they just do it out of a misguided sense of loyalty to their employer and dedication to their job. Those people are fools, unless their employer is repaying them for that devotion (which almost none do).
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I nearly never checked my work e-mails at home, even if I've been a lead in most companies. I started a successful company with other people. Even then, my evenings were my evenings, and my week-ends were my week-ends, not my company's. Some exceptions of course, but they remained exceptions.
I give my all when I am at work, and disconnect myself from work at home. Like every good geek, I check my personal e-mails, and I check my personal phone messages approximately 594,000,000 times per microsecond (slightly exaggerating, but let's just say that number would be higher if I didn't have to drive sometimes ;) ), and everyone @ work knows they can call me or phone me if they are stuck. However, I will not jeopardize my mental sanity or my family's sanity for work. Starting a company is enough hard work to feel the strain, starting early AM and ending late PM (if ever), I won't add up a chain up on my nose when I'm away.
Which doesn't mean it doesn't work for you, I mean, I have people whose job it is to be 24/7 (some IT and some managers). Then you have to adapt your rhythm so you are relaxed most of the time, so your brain can work during long marathons, instead of 8 hours sprints. Even then, they all know the meaning of disconnecting, and will resort going to a place where their phone doesn't work if needed, but they will relax.
And if you feel like you work too hard, then don't :) There are other jobs elsewhere that doesn't require constant connection. Just change. It's your life. You do what you want.
dont you know? unions are only on this earth to promote the obama socialist muslim communist agenda to abort our children and fill our cheese with unhealthy dragon feces.
Unfortunately, in the context of the American mind this makes sense but in fact it's totally incorrect. Nights and weekends off has been lost over the last 30 years or so because corporations and governments worked together to reduce labor laws that protect workers and reward offshoring of labor as another avenue to damaging worker rights. Taking away our right to unionize did not make them enough money, so they had to exploit slave labor in Southeast Asia to have another implement to control workers: threatening not only individuals but entire communities with factory shutdowns.
And then they realized that with the militarization of our police forces they didn't have to threaten anything, so now they're just taking.They take our national wealth through tax loopholes, they drain our coffers with lucrative government contracts, and yet they continue to demand more and more money because there's no such thing as enough. Apple can't afford to pay full taxes, and they can't afford to pay Americans a living wage to build their products, but somehow they have over one hundred billion dollars in hard cash. They have so much money they haven't figured out how to spend it yet, and pretty much every corporation operates in a similar fashion.
Corporations continue to take and take and the only thing that will stop them is a popular labor movement, which may or may not be around the corner. Until Americans understand the root of the problem -- corporate power far outpacing democratic will -- corporations will continue to take our rights, our money, and the inheritance of a living planet away from our children. That's not because corporate people are evil, it's because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and despite all of their protestations to the contrary, they operate as any warlord or king or priest does when they are in centers of power. If they see something they want and they can get away with it, they will take it.
Smartphones don't have much to do with it.
We tell them, if they want someone to fix their problems at weekends, they can pay $50,000 a year to have them on call. Seems to work for us, and people line up to be on call for the extra few hundred dollars a week.
Naturally, it all depends on what you do for a living. That's why I find the calls for more regulation and unionization troubling. Some people need to be available, and hell, some want to be available. It all depends and there needs to be exceptions when talking about this stuff.
If my employer considers it important enough to have production problems addressed on the weekend, then they'll prepare for it. They'll hire enough people to have staff to cover things on weekends. They'll assign an on-call rotation. They'll provide the beeper or cel phone to contact the on-call people (since the device goes with the role it can be passed from one person to the next). And they'll provide compensation for working that time (either as part of salary negotiated at hire or as additional compensation for additional work beyond what was agreed upon at hire). If they don't consider it important enough... well, it's their business, it's not my place as their employee to dictate to them how they should run it.
declining wages and wealth inequality is. You're working that extra day to make up the pay you've lost over the last 30 years.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
a nice gilded wood box with a velvet lining works wonders in the whole "can't call you" thing.
If its a real emergency they will track you down.
list as follows
1 Job is ON FIRE
2 Boss is dead/out of action
3 somebody wants to say the words "You have Been Served" to you
4 somebody that did work the weekend dropped out/over
5 TLAs have shown up and they are making frowny faces
99% of the rest can wait until Tuesday
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
... if you can't go through a long weekend without constantly checking your smart phone.
Either you are in a job that you choose that requires 7x24 support, or you choose to work on a project that has a tight deadline, or you put up with a bad corporate culture for fear of having to find a new job, or you haven't trained co-workers, or you haven't faced the fact that you are a work-a-holic, etc.
There are companies that value employees and recognize the benefits of personal time. Go find one.
PS: This comment does not apply to situations where real emergencies occur. Those are obviously exceptions.
Not all of those 7 billion can do certain jobs.
The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes.
How in the world can someone check their smartphone that often? You'd have calluses from sliding the unlock icon surely.
I check my android phone if it buzzes from a message and I'm not already doing something else, or if a voice call comes in. But I'm definitely not getting voice calls every six minutes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I've made it exceptionally clear that I am not available 24x7. If my boss would like me to be on call for some period, I'm willing to discuss that, but it needs to be arranged in advance for a clear time period.
If some communication is coming in for work right now, I don't even know about it and I'll handle it on Tuesday, given the 3-day weekend. Weekends are not "extra work days", they are my time to relax, unwind, and come back to the office ready to do a much better job than if I were constantly tired, fatigued, and burnt out. Ultimately, that benefits my employer, too.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Being a little older its interesting to see the arc of human behavior. Younger people don't question the way it is, it's just the way it is and they rationalize why it's that way and they thing it's normal, even good. There was a time when people actually mattered as people and not interchangeable widgets in a service based industrial engine that consumes people in precisely the same way it consumes paper or water or raw materials.
When people mattered, their human needs mattered. How the company was loyal to the employee just the way an employee was supposed to be loyal to a company. My Father worked for the same company for 30 years and got a generous retirement from them. Today the shrinking bone and the increasing number of ever hungrier dogs forces us to be happy to give away all our human time, with our families, with our interests and personal joys and passions, or we are forced to do work that leads to living a life that is hungry and wanting.
The problem isn't and can't be cell phones. It is a ceaselessly ravenous industry that wants all of you, and when it is done will spit you out sans vital juice. The future bodes that human labor is coming to an end. But the industries are the only recipient of the changing world. We must begin to look at how we will deal with a human population that no longer can compete in the market place with robot labor Or society itself will unravel.
My smartphone came with an app called "Power Off" that I find to be 100% effective in preventing work interruptions of my personal life. The only catch is that it seems to require a reboot to turn the app off. However this is a small price to pay.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
"I work in technology in Canada, and extremely few people check their work email on (long) weekends. "
Ditto here in Luxembourg.
"It's simply not expected."
Nobody would even think to do it. It would be working for free, only stupid people do that.
If you're on call you have to be paid, always, it's the law.
If you're not paid to be on call, people don't even pick up the phone if the number is blocked or comes from a company phone.
Overtime has to be taken as free time until the end of the following month or it has to be paid _and_ taken as free time..
Why do you think they invented unpaid internships?
Same here in Australia - people are not expected or pressured to give up their holidays and/or weekends in this way. Indeed, most managers actively discourage this kind of mentality. It's a work to live country and I suspect there'd be rioting in the streets if someone tried to change that.
This kind of article, combined with the tiny amount of vacation Americans get per year compared to every other country makes it sound like (working) hell on earth. Or maybe Americans just love working :)
"socialist atheist muslim communist agenda"
TFTFY
Yeah unions are great. That steel industry sure is kicking ass and the cost/quality of American cars can't be beat!
The Germans and Japanese don't seem to have any trouble building competitive cars with union labor. So either American unions are considerably worse than their counterparts in other countries, or the problem lies somewhere else. The Big Three haven't exactly had brilliant management. In fact, their management has traditionally been crappy and shortsighted.
German workers get paid much more than American workers and even have representation on corporate boards. Yet manufacturing in Germany is thriving and the quality of their goods is among the best in the world.