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Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

science.org

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Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#151

Post by tayo42 »

nozzlegear wrote: post #135
tayo42 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is a fake environment where your communication is policed and you need to read books about how to effectively communicate to influence people do the things you want. Normals socialization isn't like that.

When I worked in an office, there was no policing of communication or reading books on effective communication to influence people (??) – people were just normal ass people.

You never had a list of banned words at work? You missed the whole master/main thing? Words prefixed with black/white weren't given alternatives?

I had a manager once go thorough one of my slack conversations and go line by line with how I could rephrase things with softer corporate jargon.

There's books on leadership, books like crucial conversations, books on managing up. The industry is obsessed with staff engineers now and there's on that and the differentiator in that role is getting people to do things.

If you really don't deal with that, let me know where I can send a resume I'd love to work with normal people.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#152

Post by Mwntalhwalth »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #144
Mwntalhwalth wrote: post #91

Wfh since long before covid (15 years) . It will 100% burn you out slowly while you think you are better and stronger than it. Feels good at the beginning likely b.c your current job is super toxic and your away from your boss but there are many factors largely due to isolation that will settle in. To survive wfh you need to concentrate heavily on early morning sunlight, walks throughout the day, yoga, acupuncture, b…

> blue light glasses at night time And avoid seed oils, right?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28548897/ I have no idea what you are talking about re seed oils I mentioned sleep in the context of eliminating melatonin disruption.

Slowly cooking yourself isn't obvious until it's obvious.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#154

Post by kisamoto »

> We focused on occupation-level shifts in remote work rather than personal choices, as decisions to work remotely may themselves reflect individuals’ mental health status

> Understanding remote work’s impact on mental health is important for workers deciding where to work

Remote work is not for everyone so if you are someone who predominantly makes their social connections in an office being forced to work remotely will have an impact.

However I think a lot who choose to work remotely have friends outside of work. I know this study focuses on those who live alone but it may also be very different for those who live with a partner/family/friends.

Anecdotally I have found that people who want social interaction in the office push for everyone in the office (rather selfishly in my opinion) because without enough people in - for example in a hybrid model - they don’t get the same kick.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#155

Post by penguin_booze »

> Our results suggest that remote work substantially increases isolation and worsens mental health, particularly for those living alone

I don't know whom they were asking. If they had come to me, I'd have said 'hell yeah' - make remote work a legal requirement'.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#156

Post by Mwntalhwalth »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #102
Mwntalhwalth wrote: post #91

Wfh since long before covid (15 years) . It will 100% burn you out slowly while you think you are better and stronger than it. Feels good at the beginning likely b.c your current job is super toxic and your away from your boss but there are many factors largely due to isolation that will settle in. To survive wfh you need to concentrate heavily on early morning sunlight, walks throughout the day, yoga, acupuncture, b…

WFH since 2011, I don’t recognise your statement at all.

Nothing is completely binary. I've studied stress and one of the other big factors to note is loss of control and what that can do to oneself. It's nice to be able to walk into someone's office and just settle something vs letting it cook and propogate among the many other intracscies from long term wfh. Greatly depends on if your running things I think, working with a team, the type of work you do etc

Stress compounds and hides. Our monkey brains are dumb with long term issues and can easily be masked by substances.

Care to share more on what's worked well for you?

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#157

Post by watwut »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #146
tchalla wrote: post #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.

Working alone at home is far more novel and unusual than any arrangement of work and socialization that has existed in the last 500 years

Nuclear familly with one breadwinner was and is exactly that. Staying at home with a kid is more isolating then work from home (you dont have meetings).

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#158

Post by steve1977 »

anukin wrote: post #76
tianqi wrote: post #71

I don't understand how the research methodology used in the article supports this conclusion. How did they rule out the possibility that the post-pandemic economic situation has had a greater impact on these jobs, leading to greater stress? How did they we rule out that remote work has led to greater range of outsourcing, resulting in more intense competition for these jobs, rather than that caused by the lack of soc…

This is a psychology paper. It’s difficult to attribute anything in psychology easily to a certain factor.

And often it also doesn't seem to be desired.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#159

Post by sdevonoes »

nozzlegear wrote: post #135
tayo42 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is a fake environment where your communication is policed and you need to read books about how to effectively communicate to influence people do the things you want. Normals socialization isn't like that.

When I worked in an office, there was no policing of communication or reading books on effective communication to influence people (??) – people were just normal ass people.

Well, I think there’s some difference between talking to a colleague and taking to your manager (or to your manager’s manager). One cannot talk shit in front of the latter (e.g., “this company sucks”) without fear of being laid off.

Re: Home alone: Remote work, isolation, and mental health

#160

Post by anal_reactor »

My problem is that I am highly extrovert, but I just don't like most people. When I go to most places where I'm supposed to socialize, I end up not doing so, simply because we don't "click". Work is the only place where I've managed to meet non-zero number of people with whom we mutually enjoy our company.

I think remote work is amazing if you already have a strong social network outside of work, but if you don't, then it's "in order to make friends, you need to have friends".

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