Blurred Lines Between Work and Personal Time

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In past years, there were distinct lines between work and personal time. Work time was considered paid time spent working, while personal time was the unpaid time spent not working. With the advancement of technology, work time has begun to mix with personal time. Employees would take off or be given personal days for sick days, personal emergencies, buildings not being able to be occupied, or natural disasters. Now, employees are expected to work remotely when they used to get a personal day or get time off (Utomi, 2023). Advancement of technology has blurred the lines between work and personal time in another way. For most careers, there is a set time to work and during that time employees are paid. Most work would be saved for the next work day if it was not done. Now if employees do not complete their work during work hours, then employees are expected to take their work home to complete it during their personal time without being paid for this extra time. With this advancement of technology, people do not have to meet in person to work. People can work remotely from across the world with others if they would like. The problem with this is time zone differences. People may have to work during their personal time in order to meet with others remotely. There has been a shift from working only during work hours to working during personal time due to the advancement of technology. (Side note: Some careers do not have distinct lines between work and personal time, but in recent years the shift I discussed above has been applied to careers that can have distinct lines between work and personal time.)

I think the COVID-19 pandemic has played a role in the blurring of lines between work and personal time. Throughout 2020 many jobs had to be completed remotely. Once employers and employees realized remote work is possible and can be done, the shift began. Now more than ever work is being completed remotely during personal time.