I'm talking with a former colleague who is living at home with her extended family. In her home there are her two grandparents, her aunt, herself, and a dog. She no longer can escape to friends houses for long weekends nor travel to new cities each week for her work. She is stuck. Still employed, she isn't terribly busy due to the closures of campuses nationwide.
As technology has progressed, the picture of the typical office has changed. Some progressive organizations have allowed for more flexibility in hours or location of employees, some having full time remote staff members. Apps such as Microsoft Teams and Slack allow for employees to communicate and connect easily while on the go, sitting in the office, or working from home. No longer do employees need to rely on a fax or scanner to transmit important documents -- there are apps that create PDFs straight from your phone and you can store them in the cloud or send them as an email or even a text.
"Home and work have become more intertwined than at any time since hordes of farmers went out into their fields." (Rainie)
These wonderful Web 2.0 advancements and ability to connect easily has blurred the lines on what is considered our "work" lives and our "home" lives. I've often been out to dinner with the aforementioned colleague while she is required to hop on a call or shoot a quick email, long after clocking out at the end of the day. It is as if because everyone is always so connected to their work and so accustomed to receiving their answers immediately that we expect those on the other end of our email chain to drop everything and respond before the message even leaves the outgoing box.
Rainie's comments on interpenetration of home and work in Networked come from 2012. In the eight years following the publication, technology has improved by exponential leaps and bounds.
Oh, and virtually everyone still able to maintain employment has been forced into their homes to be both employee and teacher and babysitter and disciplinary and short order chef and the list goes on I am sure. The time spent on work affairs certainly looks different for many right now. Maybe their overall hours are consistent, but not consecutive. Maybe others are truly unable to disconnect as the work and home lives have literally become indistinguishable.
What does this "interpenetration" look like on the other side of this great unpleasantness? How many employees are going to fall in love with working remotely? How many employers are going to find that the overhead cost of a central location for employees is unnecessary?
If greater percentages of the workforce never return to the traditional office space, how do we retrain our brain to give ourselves the sanctuary of a work life and a home life? More importantly, what will our mental health look like if we can't?
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