Smartphone and Work-Life Balance - PDF

Running head: SMARTPHONE AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE
Smartphone and Work-life balance
Name of Student:
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Author’s Note:

1SMARTPHONE AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE
“Work-life balance” is basically the level of participation between the personal as well as
professional activities in a particular person’s life. It is also used to refer to the level to which
their activities related to their job are present at their respective residences. There are several
explanations of the ideal “work life balance”. It is a huge issue in the present age of
technological advancement and internet facilities as the increased amount of technology is
thought to remove the importance of physical location in the definition of work life balance.
Previously it was actually impossible to take work home before the advent of the internet and
technology. Now, however the lines have become blurred between work and time spent at home.
Contributing to the changes happening in the cultural political and the financial spheres,
the digital age of internet networks and mobile technologies has a considerable impact of the
present day work situations and businesses. Used by billions of people, smart-phones have
become a tool for employee empowerment. Technological advancement specifically in the past
decade has been huge enough to be immeasurable. The lines between professional and personal
are blurred due to the advancement in the mobile technology in addition to the cloud based
software and internet propagation. On witnessing this requirement to become much more flexible
the workers are challenged in balancing their lives and work in a proper and effective manner.
This is due to the fact that employees at present can be permanently at work due to their
availability all round the clock. It is often argued that the smart-phones have replaced the
authoritarian control of the managers. The main issue which is being discussed in this particular
essay is related to the smart-phone use and the work-life balance. The claim made is “The smart-
phone enables employees to achieve work-life balance”.
This claim is rather erroneous because there have been several instances of stress arising
in the lives of the employees due to the incessant use of smart-phones and their automatic

2SMARTPHONE AND WORK-LIFE BALANCE
connectivity to work and their availability to their work authorities. Stress is reportedly the most
common feature of a poor work-life balance. In the present situation of technological
advancement and demanding jobs mental stress has been considered to be a significant economic
as well as health issue which is responsible for causing the need for employees to do more in less
amount of time (Sarker et al., 2012).
Popular complaints which are often made by people who are against the claim is that
employers should have a certain responsibility towards their employees. Certain sections of
people feel that employees who are stressed out and tired are less productive and much more
likely to commit errors (Derks et al., 2015).
The way in which people work at present has changed drastically and in case there is not
a proper amount of check on the time spent on the gadgets, there is a chance that the mobile
devices can severely impact personal lives of the working class. Smart-phones by nature are
addictive thereby harming the way a person starts or ends his or her life. Though smart-phones
help in staying connected, it also causes a severe pressure and they majorly impact the work-life
balance of employees (Skinner & Chapman, 2013).
It has been extensively stated that the work family conflict causes a major decrease in the
“employees job satisfaction and organisational commitment” thereby increasing their “turnover
intentions, job related stress and burnouts”. Conflicts of such nature can be mitigated by the
creation of a proper work life balance amid the changing pattern of work and its demands.
Despite the fact that smart-phones on many occasions help employees to meet their professional
targets, it also hampers the family life and its enrichment (MacCormick, Dery & Kolb, 2012).