Welcome to the weisure lifestyle
Jeanwah
Posts: 6,363
The new thing...work taking over our leisure time...and we like it.
Welcome to the 'weisure' lifestyle
By Thom Patterson
CNN
CNN) -- The line dividing work and leisure time is blurring right before our eyes, says one expert, and it's creating a phenomenon called "weisure time."
Many who haven't already abandoned the 9-to-5 workday for the 24-7 life of weisure probably will do so soon, according to New York University sociologist Dalton Conley, who coined the word. It's the next step in the evolving work-life culture.
"Increasingly, it's not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun," be it "in an office or at home or out in the street," Conley said. Activities and social spaces are becoming work-play ambiguous, he says, as "all of these worlds that were once very distinct are now blurring together."
Conley used the 1950s as a point of reference. "Back then, there were certain rules, such as 'don't do business with friends, and keep those spheres separate.' It was just one of the hallmarks of capitalist social life. That has completely changed."
However, the increased mixing of work and play doesn't mean bankers will be refinancing houses during their kids' piñata parties.
But what it does mean is more and more Americans are using smartphones and other technology to collaborate with business colleagues while hanging out with their families.
t doesn't mean tax attorneys will be getting makeovers during their tax-law seminars. But they may be chatting with Facebook friends while participating in a conference call.
What happened? Why do Americans want to mix work and play? Well, first, there's more work and less play, according to Conley's book "Elsewhere, U.S.A."
"For the first time in history now, the higher up the economic ladder you go, the more likely you're going to have an extremely long workweek," he says. These busier Americans often want to save time by taking care of business and pleasure simultaneously.
Obviously, the Internet offers nothing but opportunity for that.
'The creative class'
People are more willing to let work invade their leisure time because, for a lot of Americans, working has become more fun, Conley says. He refers to this group of professionals who tend to get more enjoyment out of work as "the creative class," borrowing a term coined by author Richard Florida.
Their work involves ideas -- perhaps helping create a new software product, ad campaign or creative financial derivative.
"This makes their work a source of meaning and fun to them, and thus the work-all-the-time mentality is partly driven by choice and desire," Conley said.
It's no coincidence, Conley says, that weisure has been growing simultaneously with the popularity of the personal computer, which has helped professionals with more tedious parts of their jobs -- and has made many jobs somewhat more interesting.
Weisure has been fueled by social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, where "friends" may actually be business partners or work colleagues.
"Social networking as an activity is one of those ambiguous activities," Conley said. "It's part fun and part instrumental in our knowledge economy."
These networking sites offer participants in the weisure life lots of ways to do business -- and to have fun.
Social technology "triggers a pleasure response in our brain that we want, even if it's quasi-junk mail, because someone's reaching out to us for a social connection. So we're addicted, some of us, me included."
'We lose our private sphere'
Perhaps more disturbing is the idea that weisure is changing us. "We lose our so-called private sphere," Conley said. "There's less relaxing time to be our so-called backstage selves when we're always mingling work and leisure."
If you're thinking that a backlash may be around the corner for the weisure concept, you're right. In fact, Conley says, the backlash has begun.
"You can see that in the populist anger against the bankers" who've been blamed in part for the current economic downturn, Conley says. The backlash is evident in the rise of alternative social movements involving people "who live in a more frugal and environmentally conscious way," he says.
But, short of a nuclear winter or some cataclysm sending us back to the stone age, there's no turning back the clock on the spread of weisure, he says. The weisure lifestyle will engrain itself permanently in the American culture.
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Every culture creates its antithesis, Conley says. Eventually the weisure class could merge with a "getting back to basics movement" and form something new.
"I don't know what that will look like," he said. "But this period we live in now will look very quaint and silly to folks 50 years in the future, just as the 1950s look very fake and quaint and earnest to us now."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife ... index.html
Welcome to the 'weisure' lifestyle
By Thom Patterson
CNN
CNN) -- The line dividing work and leisure time is blurring right before our eyes, says one expert, and it's creating a phenomenon called "weisure time."
Many who haven't already abandoned the 9-to-5 workday for the 24-7 life of weisure probably will do so soon, according to New York University sociologist Dalton Conley, who coined the word. It's the next step in the evolving work-life culture.
"Increasingly, it's not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun," be it "in an office or at home or out in the street," Conley said. Activities and social spaces are becoming work-play ambiguous, he says, as "all of these worlds that were once very distinct are now blurring together."
Conley used the 1950s as a point of reference. "Back then, there were certain rules, such as 'don't do business with friends, and keep those spheres separate.' It was just one of the hallmarks of capitalist social life. That has completely changed."
However, the increased mixing of work and play doesn't mean bankers will be refinancing houses during their kids' piñata parties.
But what it does mean is more and more Americans are using smartphones and other technology to collaborate with business colleagues while hanging out with their families.
t doesn't mean tax attorneys will be getting makeovers during their tax-law seminars. But they may be chatting with Facebook friends while participating in a conference call.
What happened? Why do Americans want to mix work and play? Well, first, there's more work and less play, according to Conley's book "Elsewhere, U.S.A."
"For the first time in history now, the higher up the economic ladder you go, the more likely you're going to have an extremely long workweek," he says. These busier Americans often want to save time by taking care of business and pleasure simultaneously.
Obviously, the Internet offers nothing but opportunity for that.
'The creative class'
People are more willing to let work invade their leisure time because, for a lot of Americans, working has become more fun, Conley says. He refers to this group of professionals who tend to get more enjoyment out of work as "the creative class," borrowing a term coined by author Richard Florida.
Their work involves ideas -- perhaps helping create a new software product, ad campaign or creative financial derivative.
"This makes their work a source of meaning and fun to them, and thus the work-all-the-time mentality is partly driven by choice and desire," Conley said.
It's no coincidence, Conley says, that weisure has been growing simultaneously with the popularity of the personal computer, which has helped professionals with more tedious parts of their jobs -- and has made many jobs somewhat more interesting.
Weisure has been fueled by social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, where "friends" may actually be business partners or work colleagues.
"Social networking as an activity is one of those ambiguous activities," Conley said. "It's part fun and part instrumental in our knowledge economy."
These networking sites offer participants in the weisure life lots of ways to do business -- and to have fun.
Social technology "triggers a pleasure response in our brain that we want, even if it's quasi-junk mail, because someone's reaching out to us for a social connection. So we're addicted, some of us, me included."
'We lose our private sphere'
Perhaps more disturbing is the idea that weisure is changing us. "We lose our so-called private sphere," Conley said. "There's less relaxing time to be our so-called backstage selves when we're always mingling work and leisure."
If you're thinking that a backlash may be around the corner for the weisure concept, you're right. In fact, Conley says, the backlash has begun.
"You can see that in the populist anger against the bankers" who've been blamed in part for the current economic downturn, Conley says. The backlash is evident in the rise of alternative social movements involving people "who live in a more frugal and environmentally conscious way," he says.
But, short of a nuclear winter or some cataclysm sending us back to the stone age, there's no turning back the clock on the spread of weisure, he says. The weisure lifestyle will engrain itself permanently in the American culture.
advertisement
Every culture creates its antithesis, Conley says. Eventually the weisure class could merge with a "getting back to basics movement" and form something new.
"I don't know what that will look like," he said. "But this period we live in now will look very quaint and silly to folks 50 years in the future, just as the 1950s look very fake and quaint and earnest to us now."
http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife ... index.html
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Comments
this especially:
"For the first time in history now, the higher up the economic ladder you go, the more likely you're going to have an extremely long workweek," he says. These busier Americans often want to save time by taking care of business and pleasure simultaneously
quite true from my personal experience anyway. i look at the bulk of directors and partners in our firm and they put in long, long hours. and absolutely, a lot of their leisure activities still involve 'work'....even if that work consists of lunches, dinners, ballgames, etc, with clients. also, tons of travel for many of the partners....which can be both fun and draining. all of these people that i know and/or work with, definite type As, go-getters, want to be the best, work for the best, etc. it's truly what they WANT.
i find most of the rest of us, you bet...work hard and want to do a great job, but don't want work to be *it*. i know for myself, i am ALL about work/life balance, and i absolutely like to keep my work 9-5. can't always do that, but for the bulk of the year, i can...and it's my preference. my at home time, my alone time, time with my husband.....far too precious to me. also, i like my privacy and seperateness from my work life. i do enjoy many work functions, but i do like, overall, those realms of my life kept seperate.
it really is amazing how much work culture has changed so much in a relatively short period of time. then again tho, just as the article states.....will probably continue to change drastically in the future. even just looking back 100 years it is amazing how different everything is, so how we work/play, unsurprising really to witness such vast changes...
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
Leisure time is so important, if people just looked to other countries, they'd realize that America is on a treadmill running against ourselves. And for what? It's not healthy, nor productive to work all the time.
D2D, I saw all the managers and "important people" given blackberries at my job too, and I couldn't have been happier to not be given one. They feel so important because they have a blackberry, but it only makes them a slave to their jobs, no time to themselves.
This quote is where I am. I'm seeing all these Type A people do nothing but work, work, work and these are my friends who have nothing to tell me but "I'm too busy to talk right now, I'll email you later". Screw that. I believe in slowing down, for my health and for prioritizing what's important in life. I am more frugal and conscious of everything, and am trying hard to get friends to unplug once in a while.
I wish more people had your point of view. Than maybe it wouldn't be so looked down upon when I say I think it is not human to have to wake up every morning at 6:00 AM. If I wake up at that time, and I feel like my head is a bowling ball, I think maybe that means I should still be sleeping.
I'm not lazy, I don't mind work. I just think the American "work ethic" is bat-shit insane.
yes, it's definitely a choice....and like most things, all about balance. i actually am 'corporate' right now, but i am not at the level that i ever have to worry about being a workaholic. sure, i have my busy seasons, but they are thankfully short spurts of crazy hours and the rest of the year, 40 hour workweeks. i used to teach, did so for a decade....but being an art teacher, i didn't have much security, hours continually cut, etc. for me, this is 'balance'..... if people love to work, good for them! i don't judge them any more harshly for it. i simply know it's not for me. thus why i am not working my way up that ladder, i am happy where i am and with what i have, overall. i definitely like my lifestyle, but i don't need to have and do everything, and never plan to. in time, i hope to do even less and enjoy even more, for now...i just try to always balance my time and my life for what i most want.
btw - EVERYone, just about, in my firm has a blackberry, so no one feels important.....most realize it for the leash it really is
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow