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Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
41–50 of 212 posts
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#42> Our results suggest that remote work substantially increases isolation and worsens mental health, particularly for those living alone.
Another angle - people don't know how to deal with isolation if not their work. Remote work has accelerated an aspect that we already knew existed. Social systems are tied ONLY around work which is not healthy.
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#43But if I want to be social why does it have to be people I didnt choose (i.e. co workers). Why can I WFH and socialise with my family/friends who I choose to be with. This is basically nothing to do with remote work and more about isolation.
I mean, it's right there in the abstract. The study showed that people working remotely were more isolated outside of work too. Personally I enjoy working remotely and value time spent alone, but the data looks interesting
Why is more isolation negative, should be a spectrum, 98% alone and the rest socialising.
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#44My office has a big grad program so there are hundreds of interns and people under 25 in the office. Is really fun for them, I think its a real benefit that people look for now.
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#45This is also why having a good manager is key; I worked as an engineering manager and kept a near weekly 1-1 with my engineers, not per se to socialize, but to allow them to ask questions about the tasks, implementation comments, etc. but the environment I created allowed them to talk other stuff. All my associates appreciated this mix of technical talk, but also fun discussions, etc. I am sure it help them to stay a…
I do this with my team. We spend more than half of our weekly 30 minute 1-on-1s talking about anything but work. That isn't written down anywhere, it's just a natural consequence of us being interested in each others' lives, and prioritizing that over "getting back" 20 minutes to do more work.
We also have a team-wide monthly "happy hour" where we bring one discussion point each, usually an interesting article. They're a lot of fun, and I appreciate my colleagues in a much more rich way than I would have otherwise.
It's so obviously important that we maintain semblance of community through live conversation in remote workplaces. I spend more time "with" my remote colleagues than I do with anyone else in my life, including my wife. The human brain does not separate cleanly into "colleagues" and "friends".
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#46anecdotal evidence doesn't mean much here, but it's been night and day for me. yes, much much more isolated but my mental health is 100x better. Even my phsyical health has improved in many ways, i'm eating better, resting more, getting medical checkups, etc... I can't overstate how amazing it has been for me. The only dread is the few times I do have to work in the office!!
Every degradation in health (physical) I've had, I can trace it to a day at the office. I didn't know it was affecting me so badly, because back in the day, what else was the alternative? a bad day at work was the cause of so much, even things like starting drinking again, smoking again, not getting enough sleep, actual chronic disease,etc...
And guess what else, I don't spend so much of my time wearing myself out commuting, but at the same time I am now interacting with more people (although not as much) on average than before.
WFH seems like a "new" thing humans are doing, and now shoddy science like this is trying to confirmation-bias their way into pleasing their benefactors. however, consider how rural people lived historically. Not a whole lot of "commuting" to the farm. You don't interact with people outside of your household unless you went to market in the nearby town. Working indoors and being sedentary is new, but not working from home (think: farm, tradesman's shop at their house, etc..).
What is extremely unnatural is clobbering random people in an "open area" "office". even in as recently as the 90s, when you worked from the office, you had an actual office to work out of!!
Not being able to filter interactions, and spending so much of your time commuting and recovering from tiring IRL interactions and a day at the office that you make no friends or associations outside of work: that's what has already caused the loneliness epidemic before covid or wfh became a thing.
These ghouls revel in that, it stokes their ego to see underling looking busy.
I swear, there has to be some sort of reckoning coming, things can't be sustained with this sort of prevalent malice by those in power (this minor topic is just one straw on the camel's back).
Coerced association and socialization is worse than loneliness. People literally kill themselves because of workplace bullying. Those bullies really don't like it when you're not there in person to manipulate and torment.
I would REALLY love it if there was a study on this instead, why are so many people angels WFH but demons in person? is it "monkey brain" mechanics and instincts kicking in that don't when you're remote?
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#47But if I want to be social why does it have to be people I didnt choose (i.e. co workers). Why can I WFH and socialise with my family/friends who I choose to be with. This is basically nothing to do with remote work and more about isolation.
The abstract of the article says that folks who have remote work are more socially isolated, even after work hours.
Maybe WFH allows folks to be more social with the people they want, but the abstract says that they socialise less overall, and are more socially isolated.
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, it's right there in the abstract. The study showed that people working remotely were more isolated outside of work too. Personally I enjoy working remotely and value time spent alone, but the data looks interesting
Why is more isolation negative, should be a spectrum, 98% alone and the rest socialising.
Well, the abstract also says they were not feeling well because of that, I guess that's what matters
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#49working remote was amazing while I lived in a city with my friends/family. it was not so amazing for me once I moved to a new city with my gf where I did not know anyone else.
Does your neighborhood have community meetings and operations ? (cleaning ? helping elderlies ? preparing for festivities ?)
Do you have a hobby ? Would you do volunteer work ?
Not knowing people is a solvable problem. Whether you like these people is another one, but that comes down to where you chose to live, not remote work or not.
Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, it's right there in the abstract. The study showed that people working remotely were more isolated outside of work too. Personally I enjoy working remotely and value time spent alone, but the data looks interesting
Why is more isolation negative, should be a spectrum, 98% alone and the rest socialising.
The abstract doesn't say that isolation is negative (I think). It just says WFH folks are more socially isolated.
For some people, more social isolation is OK. For others, not so OK. YMMV .
I personally think that more socializing is better, if it's with people who I become better by being around. The tough part is knowing who's good for me, and how I can find them.