I like how this blog present original analysis -here, the fact that social media and work is a legitimate sought-after escape from every day boring relationship-. Eye contact, how to avoid them!
But this post is all over the place, and It do not follow any logical construction.
First it pretend Randi Zuckerberg wrote a book to keep the idea that plugged -to the internet- is the default state. Implying it should not be default.
But then it say we need to be plugged to avoid the burden of existence -With Sartre mixed in-
And then it go all over the place with how women are encouraged to value pictures -above the real thing- for consumption benefit; And how media pretend men also value pictures -paparasi one- just to keep selling picture to women.
It's a mess. A funny to read mess, but a dense one. If you can make sense out of it, good for you.
I think The Last Psychiatrist is bipolar. His dumps are an awful lot like my mother's when she's manic. The lack of focus is also characteristic - there's a basic narrative thread there trying to come out, but it keeps getting body-checked by tangents and related ideas if only you can get through the two or three leaps of insight that the author doesn't have time to walk you through. The basic argument here, I believe, is that personal initiative counts a lot more towards personal happiness than the writings of an ex-Facebook exec. Perhaps. There's a bunch of big-word vitriol to slog through in order to find evidence supporting that argument, though, and honestly, your title for the work is a lot more interesting than The Last Psychiatrist's. I shared it and I think it's worth talking about because the title alone makes this a worthwhile discussion. I'ma tag it with #askhubski just to make that happen and invite people to read the article or not. THAT SAID I've read more than a few treatises on your question - "why we filled downtime back up with work." Perhaps the most compelling argument I've read comes from a great little book called Methland. The argument goes like this: Speed is a particularly American addiction because the "American ethic" has been "work hard and get ahead" for the better part of 250 years. There's nothing in American tradition to shame industriousness; "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." We've got Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, we've got the Myth of the Garage, we've got 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. We live in a society that values hard work and effort above all else. The argument of Methland is that when busting your ass gets you ahead, a drug that helps you bust ass is easy to rationalize. In the words of Philip K Dick, (Paraphrased; it's in Future Noir a book on Blade Runner and I'll look it up if I have to) I mean, look at it. Every work-related gadget you have in your life got there by proclaiming its "productivity." That's why Work gave you a Blackberry, right? That's why you can check your work email from home. That's why you've got a VPN to the office. So you can be "productive." There's half the equation: wages and employment in the United States have been effectively flat for ten years. Productivity? Productivity keeps going up. Interestingly enough, Sweden, Belgium, Norway and France are just as productive, hour worked for hour worked, as the United States. Overall, however, the US pulls way ahead for the simple reason that we work 40% more than those countries. They don't have the "work ethic." The flip side, the one actually addressed by the article (after a fashion) is why we fill up what time we have left with online triviality. I'd argue it's because you can't use all your "productivity" hours productively. You have to get some Farmville in there. Realistically speaking, every time you sit down at the computer to do "work stuff" you're a fireman, you're an air traffic controller. You're bored, you're partially focused, and you're sitting at the ready for crises to erupt. When those crises erupt you're gung-ho into full productivity. You've given it your entire focus. You're doing the job you were hired to do. But in between, when there isn't an immediate need, you're given over to other things. People play. People socialize. People shop. People live their lives. But because they're in this productivity trap, they can't give their attention over to it fully. That's the reason triviality has overtaken the online space - it's full of people with one eye on what they're getting paid for and the other eye on preserving their sanity. And since they did spend an hour at work playing Farmville, their own ethics allow them to feel okay spending an hour at home on work emails. Followed by another hour of Farmville because Zynga is pure uncut digital heroin. Those are my thoughts as of this moment, anyway. They may change if I read another book.I'm a science fiction writer trying to feed six children. I do a lot of speed.
You address triviality (Farmville) in work place.
The question, I think, was the other way around: The work (work email) in triviality place (diner room with spouse) And the Last psychiatrist got something when he pretend it's because we do not want to be "just" a spouse, we need to show off as a "worker". And not because we like work, or because as an ethic of work like you said (it must be partially true of course); But because being a spouse is plain boring. He went even further as explaining that before the internet, being a spouse was already unbearable so we used small talk to get through it. Which somehow get along well with Methland argument for triviality in work : What were we doing in workplace before Farmville? Painting nail, playing room golf. We must notice that the open-space came at the same time as the internet; With internet we can hide our triviality in open-space. The point being, either at work or in the diner room, we cannot be the one thing society ask us to be : A pure worker, or a pure family member. We need to mix thing up to feed the illusion that we are something bigger, less boring. I cant help but think there something really true here. And it never was -as Randi Z. Pretend- about protecting the family space from the work shore. It's about surviving the boredom of family place with anything else: work is fine because it is valued by society.
A few things: 1) The Open Office was invented by Robert Probst, CEO of Herman Miller, in 1960. Herman Miller introduced the Action Office in 1964 and published the concepts in his book "The Office: A Facility Based on Change" in 1968. So really, open-space offices effectively predated The Internet (as far as the broader world was concerned) by 30+ years, or more than a generation of workers. 2) "Being a spouse is plain boring" doesn't have any basis in fact. Certainly, marital problems exist… but we haven't let work seep into our lives because work is somehow more interesting. A healthy work/home balance has been a cornerstone of industrial/commercial production since before Henry Ford - he placed a great premium on vacation and benefits so that his workers would be focused. The Last Psychiatrist uses "boring" in terms of "smalltalk is boring" not "marriage is boring" - extrapolating, a marriage that is already uninteresting is vulnerable to iPhone intrusions, not because the institution itself is flawed. 3) Prior to Farmville, people spent less time at work. The proliferation of time-wasters on the Internet is related to an increase of time spent away from leisure pursuits. I can find you graphs. 4) Society does not has not and never will ask you to be "a pure worker" or "a pure family member." Not even Lenin was into that. It does not explain the proliferation of work email at home.
Is it as simple as societal expectation? A kid born into today's culture could easily come to the natural conclusion that we're supposed to work. I haven't read the article but I will by tonight. EDIT: I couldn't finish the article. I read enough to suspect he was preaching to the choir and moved on to other more thought-provoking things.