Is Technology Killing Leisure Time?

Posted by JonKatz on Tue Jul 11, 2000 10:30 AM from the a-wired-up-world-where-work-never-ends dept.

New surveys suggest that ubiquitous technological tools are killing off leisure time, especially for younger workers and students, who are working longer hours, taking fewer and shorter vacations (when they do go away, they take their cells, Palms and laptops along) and say they are more stressed than any other segment of the population. Opportunistic employers aren't helping, actually encouraging employees to do personal chores on the Net - from their desks

Wasn't technology supposed to free us from workplace shackles?

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.

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 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.