Constantly online and the fantasy of ‘work–life balance’: Reinterpreting work-connectivity as cynical practice and fetishism

ABSTRACT

Smartphones and other mobile communication devices are promoted with promises of enhancing professional competence and individual freedom in working life, and in work–life balance. However, an emerging stream of research demonstrates that the adoption of such technologies is accompanied by increasing stress, collective control and work intensification. This article provides a discussion of recent research on the effects of smartphone usage in contemporary organizational life. Generally, this research presents a contradiction between, on the one hand, the discourse on technologies as a means to enhance individual autonomy and competence and, on the other hand, the de facto incorporation of technology users in networks of control and an unhealthy work culture of permanent connectivity. Finding inspiration in the work of Slavoj Žižek and his development of psychoanalytical concepts, this article offers an alternative approach to this issue. It does so by reconsidering how to understand employee subjectivity and, specifically, why employees voluntarily embrace company-sponsored smartphones although they are fully aware of the damage that this technology creates in their personal lives.

KEYWORDS:

• Communication technology
• work–life balance
• ideology
• dis-identification
• fantasy
• Slavoj Žižek

Acknowledgements

I wish to warmly thank Mads Peter Karlsen, Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, CBS, for his many essential comments to an earlier version of this article. I also wish to thank the participants for their comments at the 'writing seminar' held in November 2015 at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, CBS.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCiD

Kaspar Villadsen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9966-942X

Notes

1 This article offers some reinterpretations of findings from previous studies of employees’ attitudes to their work-related smart use. Questions of research ethics and anonymity were dealt with by the authors of these studies (Middleton 2007; Mazmanian, Orlikowski, and Yates 2013; Cavazotte, Lemos, and Villadsen 2014).