Britons are knackered and suffer burnout because smartphones have blurred the line between work and leisure, according to a new report.
“Burnt Out Britain”, by think tank Onward, examined the reasons why rising numbers of people are feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and busy.
According to The Times:
It said that, contrary to popular belief, adults were sleeping on average 30 minutes a day more than they were 50 years ago, and people were not working significantly longer hours.
However, despite this, more people feel burnt out — which prevents them from volunteering or pursuing hobbies, damaging the “social fabric” of Britain.
One fifth of workers often or always feel exhausted, while between 2020 and 2022, 88 per cent of UK employees complained of burnout, research shows.
The report said this was because there was a “higher tempo of life” as people crammed different activities in at once, with no clear boundaries between different forms of activities — such as work, leisure, caring commitments and sleeping.
“The ability to work on our phones while out with friends, to do house chores while also listening to music, has blurred the line between different types of time,” it said.
“The blurring of the work-personal life distinction is the leading cause of burnout. Researchers found that workers who bring work into their personal life are less likely to do activities that help them relax.
This contributes to higher levels of exhaustion and a lower sense of wellbeing.”
The report said modern technology was now “unavoidably interwoven with other leisure activities” with people using social media while watching TV or taking their phone to bed, which “fragments” our time. The quality of leisure activities and their psychological benefits was then reduced.
The report looked at time series data, which breaks up days up into distinct “episodes” such as cooking a meal, working a shift, or reading.
This showed that in 1974, a man could expect his day to be made up of 18 distinct episodes. But the latest data from 2014 showed they now had 31 distinct episodes. Women saw an equivalent increase, from 23 to 37 episodes.
“Transitioning between ongoing activities reduces the quality of these activities,” the report concluded.
“Interruptions may seem small but they add up. This is called time confetti. You have an hour for exercise but this is broken up by taking a call or letting out the cat. This hour now feels more compressed and leads to people feeling like time is getting away from them.”
The report said that people need to be helped to “take back control” of their times to help them devote time to communities, stating that volunteering was the “biggest victim” of busy modern lives as it had halved over the past four decades.
Jenevieve Treadwell , the report’s author, said: “Social connection is what makes a community stronger. But many of us feel too burnt out, tired and under pressure to participate in civic life.
“These symptoms are real, but our diagnosis is wrong. It’s not as simple as overworking or getting too little sleep. But our days have become busier and the balance between different activities has been lost making us feel overwhelmed. We need to help people take back control of their time if we are to reweave the social fabric and revitalising civic life.”
