All Work And No Play Is A Matter Of Perspective

With the industrial age and the traditional 9 to 5 job came the idea of leisure time (Mitew 2011). When time wasn't spent working it was said to be leisure time, but now with the lines between work not even blurring, realistically they have already gone with almost every single person doing more and more work related activities outside of work hours and in the home. So why is this new form of work suddenly acceptable?

This 'function creep' (Gregg N.D., p14) describes many behaviours such as monitoring and finishing tasks at home that many people would not consider "work". Today's technology has made it possible and therefore necessary to work from home in order to 'keep ones sanity'. Even the new system of networks (rather than hierarchies) thought to bring more power to the worker is actually believed to have created more problems as people tend towards 'self-blaming' and feel like 'failures' if work isn't a success rather than blaming other factors (Banks 2007, p11 in Gregg N.D., p15). So the increased power in the workplace from the shift in responsibility and communication means that people now feel as though they are in control of their entire work life and therefore take the blame when things go awry...?

Bringing work home is the norm and as such people now need a home office, Smartphone, laptop and any other device to make their life "easier". As Gershuny (2000) suggests, it seems as though leisure has become something that you have to work hard for. As shown by the increase in consumption of goods and services, people are still moving at 110% during leisure time in order to fit in all the leisure activities they have worked so hard to obtain. Even now what was once a pure leisure activity has become work-related. Companies even have business meetings on Second Life (Wagner 2007, Pattison 2008).

The most interesting point of all this is the idea that people have become internet addicts and so do not mind doing the extra work simply because they love to be on the net. It may not be as rational as that in their minds but put simply, people like being on the net surfing, looking at web pages, answering emails etc...It is almost as if whilst working online their minds have gone off into cyberspace. I know whilst writing this blog I have become oblivious to things around me, which is in its own way sort of calming. The world narrows as you focus on the screen and not the problems outside it.

Maybe that is the power of technology. Work has become leisure. People stating they can get a good night sleep after working on emails all night because their mind can rest easy. Rather than leisure being the absence of work, it is now the activities which make us feel most at ease.

References

Banks, M. 2007, The Politics of Cultural Work, London, Palgrave, cited in Gregg, M. N.D., Function Creep: Communication technologies and anticipatory labout in the information workplace, accessed 8/8/11, http://homecookedtheory.com/wp-content/uploads/functioncreepnms.doc, p14.

Gregg, M. N.D., Function Creep: Communication technologies and anticipatory labout in the information workplace, accessed 8/8/11, http://homecookedtheory.com/wp-content/uploads/functioncreepnms.doc

Mitew, T. 2011, Global Media Busniesses and Immaterial Production, DIGC202, Global Networks, University of Wollongong, delivered 15 August.

Pattison, K. 2008, 'Why You Should Have Your Next Business Meeting in Second Life', Fast Company, August 5, accessed 18/8/11, http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2008/08/interview-philip-rosedale.html

Wagner, M. 2007, 'Using Second Life For Meetings And Collaborations', weblog post, InformationWeek, Febreuary 8, accessed 18/8/11, http://www.informationweek.com/blog/229216663