I have been giving a lot of thought lately to how to better balance work and life. Technology, it is often assumed, will help people be at home more, with their kids more, with their loved ones more, out of the office more. But, is this all a fallacy? Do our blackberrys, iPhones, computers, etc. really act as electronic tethers that shackle us to work?
I was reading an interesting Slate piece,
Tearing Down the “Electronic Cottage” Why telecommuting may destroy your work/life balance, on this, which said, in part:
Could it be that the labor-saving gadgets that were supposed to help restore our work/life balance would only make it worse? If so, historians of technology would not be much surprised by this ironic twist. In her classic More Work for Mother, University of Pennsylvania historian Ruth Schwartz Cowan showed how the introduction of supposedly labor-saving devices into the household resulted in women doing ever more work. Gender relations aside, Schwartz's broader philosophical point was both simple and intriguing: The supposed benefits of such devices cannot be assessed in isolation from the broader social, economic, and cultural context in which they are put to use.
I would be interested to hear what you think. Does telecommuting work? How do you find balance?
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