What ever happened to compartmentalizing our lives so that we could ‘switch off’ and enjoy our leisure time after we finish our traditional nine to five jobs? The industrial age has gone and we are left with a communication economy that that blurs the line between work and lesuire more than ever, and this is not only accepted, but expected. Why?
Mobile technology has made it possible for people complete work outside of office workers, thus creating an obligation workers feel the need to fill. Gregg discussed a concept called the ‘function creep,’ where employees would prefer to finish off work tasks at home in order to 'keep ones sanity' while at work, but accessing work in unpaid circumstances has created a situation in which too much is expected. This social shift of expectation in the workplace has created problems of self-blame due to the responsibility employees now feel to be constantly ‘wired to work’.
After reading this weeks readings, I have several ponderings. Should the advancements in technology encourage us to converge work with leisure? And more importantly, should we feel pressured to relentlessly have one eye on the ball when it comes to work?
As we increasingly use our phones, laptops, and other mobile technologies for leisure, it’s becoming more common for us to just ‘quickly check our emails,’ but my next question is, can we find this elusive balance? I believe that finding the balance between work and leisure is going to be the key for workers’ sanity’s all over the networked globe. I would find it difficult to switch off completely from my physical work space and not even have the option to check emails and finish that report, however, I do not have any problem with keeping my spare time open for leisure activities and seeing friends and family. As with everything, balance is necessary…so I suppose my last statement here can be; thank God we have grown up multi-tasking!
Yeah, some valid points raised in this post! In regards to the multi-tasking mentality, I find myself multi-tasking when it's not even needed or appropriate, just because It's ingrained into our lives and lifestyles.
ReplyDeleteI can only wonder if this trend has lowered the quality of worked produced. I usually always do Uni assignments at home but find myself multi-tasking various other tasks whilst doing this. I guess that's why sometimes I know to get better results I'll stay back at the library so I can buckle down and not get distracted by other tasks.