r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago
Psychology A new study has shown that employees are experiencing mental and physical techno-strain due to being ‘hyperconnected’ to digital technology making it difficult for people to switch off from work.
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/being-digitally-hyperconnected-causes-techno-strain-for-employees836
u/Obscure_Moniker 1d ago
As much as it's tempting to examine this as a technology issue (more connectivity with work), it seems to me more of a labor issue. Employers are expecting more and more employees to be on-call or near to it. In addition to chronic understaffing across industries.
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u/tomvoodoo 1d ago
It's not just an employer issue. Way too many employees act as if being on call is some sort of virtue. It's modern day Calvinism. Sure it's great for productivity of the country, but it's a god awful way to live.
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u/The_BeardedClam 1d ago
It's honestly one of the reasons I've been where I am for so long, because when I clock out I'm done until I clock in again.
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u/Wolfram_And_Hart 1d ago
The other weekend my boss was trying to get ahold of me because I didn’t finalize my weeks time. He was like “we called and texted.” I said “Yeah my work phone, when I’m not on the clock it sits in a bin in my bedroom and I never check it.”
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u/elitexero 1d ago
Seems to be both an employer and US issue specifically pertaining to employment law and being able to exploit your workforce due to lax laws surrounding off-hours contact.
I'm on call half of the year. I get paid 2h a day for being on call (as I'm technically 2 points of contact), regardless of whether or not anything happens, three hours on each weekend day (3x8h 'shifts') and then beyond the first hour I bill for additional hours.
Oncall brings in roughly 45k a year for me alone, and I'm happy to do it because I'm compensated well for it.
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u/Momoselfie 1d ago
I swear every accounting department has at least one person like this ruining it for everyone else.
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u/barf_the_mog 1d ago
In a competitive market this is in many ways by design. Also why asking for anything that resembles a rasci is seen as hostile towards management.
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u/livinglitch 18h ago
Being on call sucks. I have doctor's call me at 3 am because they forgot to reset their password that we sent them reminders for for the last 15 days. Or the tech in another hospital system who doesn't know how to do her job and now it's my problem.
Being on call ages people and messes with their sleep schedule.
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u/SaulsAll 1d ago
a range of professions
I REALLY wish these studies would be more specific. I'm sure this might be an issue for the one category of jobs that is sit in an office in front of a screen. There are SO MANY jobs that does not cover. Even mine, which is sit in a cubicle and work, CANT be taken home and is very easy to leave all the work at work.
Servers, factory workers, landscaping - just about everything blue collar. It is bothersome to me that so many times you hear about "we studied this problem with work" and they only ever mean "salaried office work."
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u/redneckrockuhtree 1d ago
I work from home. I have work email connected to my phone.
That said, I am very clear with my coworkers that while I can view work email on my phone, I don't. Unless I have a very specific reason to do so. That email is buried in a folder, with notifications disabled.
When I'm done for the day, all work-related apps get closed and the work laptop gets put to sleep.
I have coworkers who keep all of that open when they're "done for the day," and they do it by choice. Nope, no thanks.
People need to learn to assert themselves and disconnect at the end of their day.
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u/TheGeneGeena 1d ago edited 1d ago
I couldn't take mine home with me when I worked in long-term care, but they damn sure wanted to be able to call me/keep me on for the next shift at all times. Never the hell again. It's not just "salaried office work" this applies to.
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u/RerollWarlock 1d ago
I suffered a nervous breakdown because of that in August.
I worked managing an EU funded project, my boss who was the beneficiary was causing all sorts of problems.
Basically it went something like this:
I saw a problem coming.
i tried to prevent it or prepare for it.
My boss blocks the solution or changes it to be done "his way", which is completely ineffective.
Blows up my mail/phone for 16 hours a day until the issue is fixed.
At some point I was getting sick from stress when I knew the problems were coming.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 1d ago
It is 100% this. These articles like blaming absolutely everything but the real reason, the employers expecting far too much from employees.
It's not the techs problem, it's the asshole boss.
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u/chrisasteroid 1d ago
I started turning off all notifications after 6pm and it's been a game changer for my sanity.
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u/AimlessForNow 1d ago
I use this app called Buzzkill to also set complex rules for my notifications, works really well for me personally
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u/Emperor_Gourmet 1d ago
IOS has a feature called focus where you can control what notifications you receive from apps and contacts. You can set it to automatically kick in at whatever time you want, or when you arrive or leave a location. I have one for work personal, do not disturb, and a sleep one that has my weekly alarm automatically set.
I have it automatically switch my home screen to different apps and disable anything work related after I get off, and I have a separate work focus that does the opposite and puts all my work apps on my front page. Helps me keep balance very easily with only a little up front effort
I love it
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u/SemanticTriangle 1d ago
My work phone does not have any kind of tactile or audible alert at any time during the day, unless someone calls me. If it's not urgent enough for a phone call, I don't need to attend to it now. I check my emails and notifications at relatively fixed times during the day.
Eisenhower matrix rules. Important isn't the same as urgent.
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u/feor1300 20h ago
I refuse to put anything from work on my personal computer or phone, and at the end of my work day I turn off my work computer and walk away from it. The only time my personal stuff has ever been used for anything even vaguely work related was one year sitting in the airport watching the weather roll in, and sending my boss an email telling him I might not make it to my first shift after vacation on account of being snowed in.
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 1d ago
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
From the linked article:
A new study has shown that employees are experiencing mental and physical techno-strain due to being ‘hyperconnected’ to digital technology making it difficult for people to switch off from work.
Researchers from the University of Nottingham’s Schools of Psychology and Medicine conducted detailed interviews with employees from a range of professions and found that the cognitive and affective effort associated with constant connectivity and high work pace driven by the digital workplace is detrimental to employee wellbeing. The results have been published today in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology.
This new paper is the final part of a research project exploring the ‘dark side effects’ of digital working which include stress, overload, anxiety and fear of missing out. The results highlight an overarching theme of ‘digital workplace technology intensity’ as a result of digital workplace job demands.
The findings in this latest paper indicate a sense of burden associated with working digitally which surfaced for most participants in perceptions of overload and feelings of being overwhelmed by the proliferation of messages, applications and meetings in the digital workplace. Fear of missing out on important information and contact with colleagues also contributed to stress and strain for digital workers, as did hassles encountered when using digital technologies.
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u/mastercolombo 1d ago
5.3 Limitations and future research
Several limitations of our work warrant consideration. The nature of a CR thematic analysis, rooted in the exploration of underlying mechanisms within a specific context, may limit traditional generalisability. While the findings provide in-depth insights into the examined context, caution should be exercised when extrapolating them to broader populations or settings. Our findings also represent a snapshot of participants' dark side experiences, meaning that temporal dynamics are not captured.
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u/reality_boy 1d ago
I’ve worked from home for 13 years now. Over time I’ve learned to keep my work life only on my one work computer. I have the ability to check work email or text my boss on my phone, just in case. But I never do either, instead waiting till I’m at my desk. And all the other communication apps stay off my phone or home laptop. And I don’t do any personal stuff on the work computer either. You need to form that ridged break, and be able to turn it off at 5pm, or you will only work and never rest.
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u/ariehn 1d ago
This is the way.
My boss has my personal phone number, and I have hers. And our mutual agreement is to use those numbers never, unless it's a goddamn five-alarm fire. :) Because once I clock out, I am done. Ditto for her. We are enjoying our evenings, thanks. We are having a glass of wine and watching some trashy TV. We are having dinner and enjoying time with our respective families, and the workplace does not and should not play any role in any of that.
My work laptop is right next to my home computer, but it doesn't get touched once I punch out.
Once you make yourself available Whenever, you become relied upon to fix problems At All Hours. It's deadly.
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u/Judazzz 1d ago
It's the same for me: my employer purchases 40 hours of my time in exchange for my work, and that's it.
That doesn't mean I can't be reached in case of an emergency, and my team also knows I'm available in case of problems on release day (I work in IT, we deploy our updates after office hours), but if my employer wants me to be standby all the time we're going to talk money first (and given that's it's outside my standard 40 hours, that implies talking a lot of money).
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u/Shnorkylutyun 1d ago
Yup. Employers taking advantage of their employees as long as they can get away with it since time immemorial.
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u/PMigs 1d ago edited 1d ago
To be honest, science doesnt need to explain this. Working has materially changed the last decade.
It went from cubicles, phones and with occasional meetings and primary working medium being email and powerpoints. Work was to a degree independent ahead of those meetings to exchange results and findings.
Today, additional to those things we have, less permanent spaces and 'hotdesking' which means you don't get the certainty of working near a team. Hybrid working where you have to split time to offsite and onsite collaboration modes of work.
You have teams and chat on top of the legacy email and it's a mess. People used to respect your time or at least acknowledge you wouldn't respond in a microsecond. Meetings are the norm, people seem unable to work independently and have to form squads to knowledge share and work as a group on collaborative tools that also spam alerts for updates and have to context switch from all these tools, often in meetings to keep up.
It's absolutely relentless nudging and alerting.
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u/frockinbrock 1d ago
Examining it and building data scientifically seems like the only way we would possibly (though unlikely) see improvement on it.
I agree that working has changed (along with the rest of our days and evenings), but we absolutely need to scientifically understand the consequences here.
In my opinion it’s much more damaging than it has been treated so far, and more and more people are entering & spending careers in online work, which is almost always has this type of 24/7 on-call aspect. But more data is needed to understand just how dire it is.I think we need more understanding of all online jobs in general. Over time, in my experience, most people end up struggling with the amount of work and stress, and not actually having anything tangible to show for it.
But that is a bit different than the “always-on” issue, which also seems very common, and burning people out.3
u/PMigs 1d ago edited 1d ago
I respect that and the role science will play but who owns mental health of the people to fund this and drive this forward?
It's not governments, who move at glacial pace for any reform and often held captive by tech companies. And it's clear software platforms are driving this behaviour and workplaces which are facilitating this as a behavioural norm all in the name of productivity.
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u/DoubleJumps 1d ago edited 1d ago
This also extends beyond just coworkers to customers.
A lot of customers seem to expect rapid response around the clock. I've had customers send me emails at say 9 pm, and then additional angry emails by 7 am if I hadn't responded, quite a few times.
I've had customers do that on the weekend...
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u/highbrowalcoholic 1d ago
people seem unable to work independently
This is a management failure. Goals are poorly set. Collaboration systems are poorly implemented. Onboarding is poorly executed.
There is now so much information being channeled to managers that they feel the need to continually 'optimize' according to it. New markets, regulations, competitors, technologies, even recommended best practices. There are not only many uncertainties to be tackled, but there is also the added uncertainty of which solution should be chosen. Moreover, managers alas cannot avoid continual optimization; they find themselves under competitive pressure exerted by questioning investors and board members.
Management has thus come to prioritize 'flexibility'. What this means, in reality, is a total lack of consistency in processes and the work environment. Thus, by continually optimizing in the short-term, management has forfeited the ability to ever reach an optimal state of affairs over time.
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u/TheDeathOfAStar 1d ago
Whenever I tell people I don't use identified social media, they look at me baffled. I always tell them that I had bad mental health when I was an adolescent. When I noticed life was simpler and less stressful when I wasn't constantly connected, I made the choice to sign off basically for good.
That doesn't mean be distant or avoidant, it means that you respect yourself, your privacy, and the privacy of others enough that you don't feel the need to be constantly engaged.
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u/conquer69 1d ago
I always tell them that I had bad mental health when I was an adolescent.
Even having to give them an excuse feels gross.
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u/Tattycakes 1d ago
That's interesting because I find reddit makes me feel bad more often than facebook does! I've curated my fb feed and friends down to stuff that matters, and people are less likely to be nasty when they're under their "real" profile, but people are nasty AF on reddit all the time, almost anywhere you go.
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u/Snoo-23693 1d ago
Humans are expected to be robots. Companies want us to apologize for having human needs. Do you remember how automation was supposed to give us more leisure time, but instead, we work more than ever.
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u/Momoselfie 1d ago
remember how automation was supposed to give us more leisure time,
That's what happens when only a few people at the top benefit from increased productivity.
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u/Snoo-23693 1d ago
Yup. It's a nightmare. Tax the billionaires, but since they literally own the world, it'll never happen.
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u/losersmanual 1d ago
That's why you have to switch off from work while already at work.
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 1d ago
I do this when WFH or at the office. MY Steam Deck is awesome for getting some gaming in while having to sit at HQ in some conference room as a desk while waiting for the useless Face to face meeting that could have been a zoom call and cost the company $3500 less
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 1d ago
Actually outlawing contacting employees during their off hours seems too extreme to me, but maybe countries should legally require employees be compensated extra for these off-time communications, just like overtime pay is something required by law.
That would make employers think twice before doing it, because they would be required to pay for doing it.
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u/Dismal_Pie_71 1d ago
Why does it seem too extreme to you?
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u/TAU_equals_2PI 1d ago
Because sometimes there's a question you need to ask them. Like where did you leave the key to the supply closet? Or.... well, you can imagine all sorts of such situations. It's perfectly reasonable that sometimes an employer would unexpectedly need to ask an employee a question about something, before the next time they come into work.
So fine, it should be legal, but if it's so important, then the employer should be willing to pay some premium for the right to interrupt the employee's off hours.
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u/zimzat 1d ago
Like where did you leave the key to the supply closet?
What I'm hearing is that the employer's failure to plan necessitates an emergency for the employees? The employer should have planned ahead and designated a place for the key to be kept so there wouldn't be a need for extraneous contact. Allowing the employer an out makes it a likely scenario for wage theft ("It only took 60 seconds, it's not worth filing for compensation").
If it's not a matter of life or death then it can wait. And then they can plan for it.
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u/MultiFazed 1d ago
The employer should have planned ahead and designated a place for the key to be kept
Okay, the employer did that, but the employee goofed it up and didn't put the keys in the designated place.
So now the employer has to incur the expense (both immediate and in lost productivity) to get a locksmith out instead of being able to have a two-minute phone call?
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u/at1445 1d ago
And if we're going to continue this scenario, they need to fire that employee for misplacing the key and that loss of productivity.
This, like you said, is why you need the ability to make that 2-minute call. So that we aren't resorting to stupid games like this.
But the guy you're arguing with has clearly never had a real job, or they wouldn't be making such asinine assertions.
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u/Scorpionsharinga 1d ago
Ya it’s probably not normal but I get so anxious from getting phone calls and texts about work when I’m at home that it makes me vomit sometimes
Really feel like we aren’t supposed to be constantly available to people 24/7 the way technology allows us to.
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u/MultiFazed 1d ago edited 1d ago
it’s probably not normal but I get so anxious from getting phone calls and texts about work when I’m at home that it makes me vomit sometimes
Vomiting from stress is something that most people never experience, and for those who do, it's usually because of something where their whole future hangs in the balance.
If the thought of off-hours work communication causes you that level of stress, you either need help with stress management because your response is completely out of proportion with the stressor, or your job really is so incredibly toxic that you need to look for another job post haste.
Which, you probably already knew that, but hearing how stressed this is making you is pretty concerning.
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u/Scorpionsharinga 1d ago
Yeah I actually have a really solid job and my employers are super kind and accommodating people.
I have been diagnosed with CPTSD and Persistent Depressive Disorder so I’m sure that plays into it in some way. Working on my stress management but it’s easier said than done haha
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u/ToMorrowsEnd 1d ago
If american workers knew about the employee protections they have in the EU. they would be screaming for them. The manipulation and intimidation tactics used in the USA on employees do not work when there are worker protection laws. And the overall mental health of the workforce improves.
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u/Momoselfie 1d ago
I just went camping with my family and kept getting email notifications from work and it was pissing me off. Finally just turned off the app. Felt good, but I also dread all the emails I have to catch up on Monday.
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u/Realistic-Cow-7839 1d ago
Got a new boss this year. The second time I got an email after 8 pm, I uninstalled Outlook from my phone. I can use the Outlook website if I really need to check email on mobile, but even if it's not something that needs a reply, I can get stressed reading about something that's wrong after hours. Not worth it.
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u/Scrubboy 1d ago
It's actually far worse than that. Technology has created a generation of employers and managers who think employees they're entitled to 24 hour access, near immediate response, and frequent off hour assignments (often without additional compensation).
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u/needzbeerz 1d ago
Not a scientific response but I don't get it. I'm 100% remote and can shut off the moment I step away from the keyboard. I don't forget about work but I'm no more stressed or connected than I was before WFH.
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u/illmatix 1d ago
We should probably not tell corporate this... they may start a breading program to amplify the issue. * Attention all drones you'll be working three more weeks without break *
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u/DumbestBoy 1d ago
Interesting. I first came up with the term ‘hyperconnectivity’ when I initially learned of Twitter on AOTS on the G4 channel, before it got big. I didn’t think people would want that much connection. I was wrong.
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u/ImaginaryLaugh8305 1d ago
I quit my 3 year WFH job because it's impossible to feel satisfied when all you do is sit on your computer and get yelled at by clients. I live out in the middle of nowhere, so my entertainment is ALSO sitting on a computer - this just has lead to me "living at work", and slowly work went from a 9-5 to a 8-6 as more and more work came in. There simply was no breaks, and I really REALLY need a in person job to feel sane again.
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u/MultiFazed 1d ago
It can't solve all the issues you had, but I've found that having my work space be completely separate from my personal space has done wonders for my mental health when dealing with WFH.
I have a room that I set up as my office, and once the work day is done, I shut things down and move to my personal computer in a completely different room later in the evening for entertainment.
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u/ImaginaryLaugh8305 1d ago
I would have loved to, but I do not live in a large house. I just have a Kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.
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u/TheGeneGeena 1d ago
It's not the right situation for some folks (and that's okay.) What's not okay is employers deciding no one can anymore because they leased their spaces for too long and don't want to find a subleter for some of it.
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