Long term psychological effects of continued work from home

[Leigha]

https://www.fastcompany.com/90544975/4-m...emote-work

Studies have been showing since the beginning of the pandemic when working from home became a viable option for many, that productivity soared. But, perhaps a hybrid of wfh and commuting to an office space would be a good compromise for employees who want to wfh and employers who want to visibly see their staff. While I agree that wfh can lead to a different type of stress, anxiety and at times, feeling isolated...many people would accept some of those ''effects'' over long commutes and dealing with office politics. Employers should offer a balance to their employees, especially since we're still not out of the woods yet with Covid.

[C C]

"Social isolation is a real problem. [...] Fourth, it is not possible to simply erase our evolutionary bandwagon and replace millions of years of in-person interaction with technologically mediated or virtual communications."

But who were they interacting with usually in that past? Before the 20th-century, the bulk of North American population lived in rural areas, where even visiting a neighbor could eat up a lot of essential work time; and traveling to a "nearby" town might occur twice a month or only once.

But the farms and ranches could consist of extended families back then -- aunts, uncles, grandparents living together -- or gobs more kids even if it was a two parent family (barring disease taking them out, why births would still have been continuous even if primitive condoms had been widely available).

Isolated from larger world interactions, but not really in terms of kin and the distributed over empty miles community gathering at Church each Sunday.

In contrast, today an Anglo household could be a pretty empty place, albeit the majority plunked within a denser population, rather than islands resting in seas of crop fields, livestock pastureland, and woods.

[Syne]

I assume this stuff is more a problem for women than men, as evolution has equipped men pretty well to deal with long stretches of time out on solo hunts, etc..

[Leigha]

I’ve been working from home for the past three years and I’ve grown to really like it. Giving up a long commute is worth occasionally feeling like you’re not “in the know,” imo. From those of my friends who were forced to work from home during Covid, they had a struggle with structuring their day and started falling behind on deadlines and such. I guess some like the office structure because it segments their day in a way they can’t mirror at home. The only drawback is that you find yourself stretching your workday into the evening because there is no set place to “leave,” so you have to manage that so you have balance.

[C C]

I’ve been working from home for the past three years and I’ve grown to really like it. Giving up a long commute is worth occasionally feeling like you’re not “in the know,” imo. From those of my friends who were forced to work from home during Covid, they had a struggle with structuring their day and started falling behind on deadlines and such. I guess some like the office structure because it segments their day in a way they can’t mirror at home.

It perhaps takes some self-discipline to stay as focused as one would in a conventional work environment, to not be lulled into any laxity or freedoms that the domestic environment might usually offer,  (Though "home" can be just the opposite for many -- a nightmare to get away from, to have a job to flee to.)   

My "commute" nowadays consists of walking back and forth to another building on the property (but not to be mistaken at hinting of our being the owners of a motel, among other possibilities). Still, due to that meager separation of distance, I doubt it counts as both locales simultaneously (at business, at home). 

The only drawback is that you find yourself stretching your workday into the evening because there is no set place to “leave,” so you have to manage that so you have balance.

The on-again, off-again nature of this situation (broken periods of waiting) can drag me well into the night. But OTOH, it's always nice to have home close by, where if the interval is going to be extremely long I can jaunt back and do something useful in that context. I don't have to stare idly at an entrance, wall, or desktop screen until _X_ finally happens or returns. I mean, it's not like I've got a maid or a house-husband or an adult offspring living in the basement (like pot-smoking Ostro gets accused of being ) -- who is going to take care of domestic chores if I don't.