The effect of Smartphones on Work-Life Balance

Griffith College Dublin Lisa Donnelly

Abstract

Smartphone usage amongst the general public has risen dramatically only in the last 2 to 5 years. With the introduction of the smartphone users have found many benefits, such as access to apps for news, public service information, entertainment as well as constant access to their email, social networking sites and the internet. This paper aims to examine the effect this has had on working people and their ability to maintain a healthy work life balance. The paper presents a brief history of the development of the smartphone and its subsequent integration into the every day life of workers. It also presents some theories on what constitutes a healthy work life balance alongside some research into existing literature to determine whether people feel their smartphones have enhanced or presented challenges in their ability to achieve this. The paper asserts that the smartphone has afforded both individuals and organisations great opportunities to improve performance and service in their workplace environments. However, both organisations and some individuals have yet to establish acceptable boundaries in relation to the use of smartphones for work based activities outside of legal working hours.

Introduction

The definition of what constitutes a smartphone is not clearly defined, however, it is commonly understood to be a mobile phone which includes advanced functionality beyond the traditional mobile phone features of providing the ability to make phone calls and send SMS messages. The majority of smartphones provide additional functionality such as cameras, the ability to view and store access email as well as a range of other applications which are developed specifically for smartphones (http://www.techterms.com/definition/smartphone). photos, store and play music via an integrated music player, access the internet,

While the word Smartphone for most consumers is synonymous with Apples iPhone and Android devices from other providers which were released to mainstream consumers in 2007, the development of what we have come to know as the Smartphone actually began in the early 1990s. The literature review

presents an overview of the development of the Smartphone. It also examines the effects the introduction is perceived to have had on users. There are an abundance of media articles which focus on the effect increased use of the internet and now the introduction of smartphones is having on the worklife balance of employees in the information society. Academic research is also what some researchers believe constitutes a healthy work-life balance. The smartphone is a relatively new addition to the life of most people having beginning to emerge in this area. The literature review presents some detail on only become widely available to the general consumer in the last five years. This general. The literature review presents an overview of some of the initial effects noted by the media and academics. It also examines how smartphones have impacted the work-life balance.

makes it difficult to ascertain exactly effect this will have on people and society in

Literature Review
The rise of the Smartphone
While the average consumer has only become familiar with the smartphone in began in the early 1990s. The diagram below shows the key development timelines for the smartphone (derived from information on www.smartphoneguide.com). the last 5 years, development of what we know as the smartphone today actually

In the early days of the smartphone (from 1992 to 2002) the prohibitive pricing business users. Most of the smartphone models during this period focussed on providing core business functionality which essentially combined the mobile phone with a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant). The release of Nokias N-Series phones marked the beginning of phones being such as an MP3 player and camera. This could be seen as the initial stages of the consumer market. White (2010) highlights a number of key technological advances that have to the general consumer. These include: Dramatic improvements in network bandwidth. Increased availability of wireless broadband. Increased size of memory cards for mobile phones. of images.

and overall marketing strategy meant smartphones were generally only used by

marketed as mobile PCs. This range of phones introduced enhanced functionality phone providers moving the smartphone concept from the business market to assisted technology and telecommunications companies in brining smartphones

Technological improvements in screen design which enhance the quality Improvements in battery life.

The introduction of mobile search which leverages the location awareness of the mobile phone.

All of the elements identified by White (2010) contributed to the 2007 release of the iPhone. The loyalty of consumers to the Apple brand built on the success of the iPod music player, as well as Apples traditional focus on the consumer huge success. Apple also leveraged the power of Web 2.0 which allowed for much more than just calls, texts, camera etc. 4 market as opposed to the business market resulted in the iPhone becoming a developers to create apps which would run on the iPhone. This helped to further entice consumers to move to the iPhone as they would be able to use their phone

The release of the Android operating system in 2007 meant that other phone to emulate the success of Apple. Since then other providers such as Nokia, market.

providers were able to move into the consumer smartphone market and attempt Samsung and HTC have gained a huge market share of the consumer smartphone Nielsen (2011), an organisation who is involved in measuring consumer usage statistics presented the following results of smartphone U.S. market share in March 2011

The Nielsen statistics report that Apple has now surpassed Blackberry in terms of smartphone sales which indicate they are now also taking a share of the business market, while Android sales have increased dramatically to overtake Apple. MobiThinking (2011) further substantiate these statistics and expand upon these to indicate that the mobile phone market is continuing to grow and smartphones are quickly gaining more of this overall share. There is no way of knowing which provider will be the most successful, however, one thin seems clear, the smartphone is here to stay.

Nielsen (2010)

What is a healthy Work-Life balance?

Work-life balance as defined by the National Flexi-work partnership is the

balance between an individuals work and their life outside work which should outside work may enhance employees contribution to work (National FlexiAnother study endorsed by the New Zealand Department of Labour further work Partnership - Work-life balance project (2005)).

be healthy, that personal fulfilment is important inside work and that satisfaction

defines the work life-balance as the ability to find a balance between three key interviewed identified three elements which they considered contributed to work-life balance. These were defined by the interview subjects as follow:

elements: paid work, unpaid work and personal time. In this study the subjects Paid time - this was seen as the time people were paid to carry out work related duties. Personal time - this was seen to consist of a number of different elements, including Me time, Time to reflect/reenergise, spiritual needs, family time, partner time, social time and physical health. Unpaid time - this was seen to be the time people took to carry out personal obligations and home based activities.

The detail above suggests that some boundary between an employees work and personal life needs to exist in order for them to maintain a healthy work life different aspects of personal time in order to maintain a healthy balance. balance. It also suggests that people must have time to allocate to a number of

(Perceptions and Attitudes Towards Work-Life Balance in New Zealand (2003)).

A short questionnaire was distributed to 20 employees in cross functional teams within a software development company to try and determine if they felt evaluated in the discussion section below. ownership of a smartphone affected any of the elements above. Results of this questionnaire are presented in the appendix. The results of the survey are

The effect of Smartphones on users

Smartphones have changed almost beyond recognition in recent years. As

discussed in the section on the history of smartphone, the introduction of the iPhone and their competitor Android phones has meant these devices are no 6

longer only available to business users of certain positions within the modern day organisation. They are now widely available to everyday consumers and networked society. offer apps for almost every conceivable task. They also mean that users are now constantly plugged-in to the web at all times bringing the world closer to a truly This has undoubtedly been of benefit to people as the Web 2.0 model has apps that users would previously have had to search explicitly for on the workers more efficient in carrying out everyday tasks. However, with all new technology that offers benefits to users there are papers focussing on the effect smartphones have had on workers. was traditionally considered personal/free time of the user.

enabled software providers to create apps which deliver specific information via internet. This is helping to further develop the information society and make disadvantages. The media has taken a keen interest in discussing the negative effect smartphones are having on users. There are also a number of academic A common theme of many of the media and academic reports are that

smartphones are habit forming and that they are resulting in work invading what An academic study conducted by Oulasvirta, A., Rattenbury, T., Ma, L., Raita, E. ritually unlock and check one or more applications such as email or social (2010), presented results that smartphones are habit forming. Their study found that people who owned a smartphone developed check habits which saw users networking on their phone. Users who participated in the study cited this habit as an annoyance and one which increased in frequency over time. While the develop into addiction. The concept of people becoming addicted to their becomes more widespread. study does not aim to study the potential for smartphone usage to develop into addiction it does cite references to the potential for smartphone check habits to smartphones is one that probably warrants further study as usage of the devices The New York Times (2010) ran a series of articles focussing on the effects of smartphone usage on users. Connellys (2010) article reports that users of smartphones find they affect their concentration and stress levels and can 7

intrude on other activities. Scelfos (2010) article reports, possibly more

worryingly that parents who use smartphones are not engaging in enough

quality time with their children as their focus is on their devices instead. The Editors (2010) of the New York Times also ran a blog series which received that smartphones have resulted in users never ceasing to multi-task. It was many offered advice on how to overcome this. contributions from a number of leading industry experts. Many of these suggest suggested that this has the potential to increase the stress levels of users and

Are Smartphones affecting Work-Life balance?

Some of the literature on this subject suggests that smartphones are affecting the provide the ability for users to be connected to work email etc. 24/7 that it is removing the boundary between work time and personal time, therefore disrupting the work-life balance. the boss? You or your gadget?. This article provided some interesting work-life balance of users. The common thread is that because smartphones now

Meece (2010) contributed an article to the New York Time series titled Whos contributions from users themselves. A number of users suggested that the ability to access work communications via their smartphone enabled them to the family activities in order to meet these work obligations. The devices also enabled them to have more meaningful contact with their families when they to face communication when families are apart due to work commitments.

meet their work obligations while at the same time meeting family obligations. Prior to the introduction of smartphones these workers may have had to forgo

were involved in work activities. Apps like Skype and Facetime enable more face The article does provide evidence that users themselves are becoming aware of cited examples of how they were consciously disengaging from their devices at set times such as family meal times. problems associated with overuse of smartphones and other devices. Some users Waligum (2010) suggests that workers are driving the situation as much as the which is driven by consumer behaviour worldwide and the desire to have the 8

organisations they work for. Employees themselves want to own a smartphone

best gadget. Most organisations willingly provide access to their corporate their personal devices. While this may have been initially to support tele-

networks including email, intranet etc. allowing employees to access these via workers in their organisations it is possible to now extend this to everyone who working arrangement in place with their employer inevitably spending part of their free time outside of the office on work activities such as email. Agger (2011) introduces the concept of iTime as a direct result of smartphones.He is of the opinion that smartphones challenge the traditional elements of a healthy work-life balance. He asserts that due to the constant owns a smartphone. This results in employees who do not have a traditional tele-

boundaries between paid time and personal time identified as two of the key

connectivity to the office provided by smartphones that people no longer have an opportunity to be dis-connected from their work life or responsibilities. Labour (2003) study identified as important for a healthy work life balance included Me time, Time to reflect/reenergise, spiritual needs, family time, The elements of personal time which subjects of the New Zealand Department of

partner time, social time and physical health. The New York Times series cited examples of how smartphones can help people address some of these needs, difficult to meet some of the other needs identified such as spiritual, connected to the distractions which the smartphone introduces. such as family time via Facetime and skype calls when employees are away from their families, social time via social networking etc. However, it may be more reflection/reenergising time, me time and physical health while constantly

Discussion
The effect of smartphones on society
The two opposing viewpoints of technological determinism and social shaping of technology both have relevance to some extent in evaluating the effect the behaviour of society. smartphone has had on society. Technological determinists such as Marshall The rapid development and user adoption of the smartphone has led to McLuhan and Neil Postman are of the view that any new technology changes the significant changes in peoples behaviour in relation to work related tasks in the now use their smartphones to access a host of information not previously available to them when they were mobile. Technological determinists would be of the view that the technology i.e. the smartphone itself has resulted in this the viewpoint taken by technological determinists: change. The following example cited by McLuhan, M. (2001 pp 8 - 9) illustrates Let us return to the electric light. Whether the light is being used for brain surgery or night baseball is a matter of indifference. It could be argued that these activities are in some way the content of the electric light since they could not exist without the electric light. This fact merely underlines the fact that the medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.

information society. It has also led to an entirely new set of behaviour as people

Here McLuhan is saying that the medium itself is what shapes society and the smartphone. Oulasvirta, A., Rattenbury, T., Ma, L., Raita, E. (2010) observe in phone the more content they discover and therefore this increases their

evolution of how people in that society behave. I dont think this is true for the their study that users use of their phone becomes more frequent as they uncover more meaningful content. They also observed that the longer a user owns the interaction times. This would seem to contradict the view that the medium itself is what changes behaviour rather than content. While it is true users would not be able to access this information on the move without the smartphone equally they wouldnt continue to and their behaviour would be unlikely to continue to 10

change if the content did not engage them. I therefore dont feel that this aspect of the technological determinist viewpoint is true for the smartphone. While to a certain extent the functionality offered by this new technology has its own would not have been able to effect change on society that has been witnessed in recent years. Government investment in wireless broadband influenced the way employees live their lives I dont believe the smartphone on infrastructure has also been crucial. The improved quality and availability of In Ireland, political influence to change the regulations surrounding mobile Ireland is still considered expensive by European standards, without the country.

wireless connectivity has also been instrumental in increased user adoption. operator licences has resulted in the mobile phone market in Ireland becoming more competitive to the benefit of consumers. While mobile phone access in introduction of competitors to the market there is a chance that the price of smartphones may have remained too prohibitive to the average user in this It could also be said that the current economic climate has instilled a

nervousness in employees that has resulted in them committing more time to work related tasks outside traditional working hours in order to secure their jobs. This is also evident in some of the quotes provided by users in Meeces (2010) article, for example The decision to plug in or unplug is a personal one. My job is fast-paced and demanding. If Im not paying attention during the off-hours, things could go south. I feel that these auxiliary political and economic factors have also contributed to the rise in smartphone usage for the purposes of carrying out work related tasks outside traditional work hours. One of Neil Postmans most famous assertions was that most technology is

affected by a kind of Frankenstein syndrome in which technology is generally

sometimes to our horror, usually to our discomfort, always to our surprisethat of the effect that the smartphone has had on workers in the information society. The technology has been developed for consumers of all kinds and provides 11

developed for a specific purpose But once the machine is built, we discover

it has ideas of its own" (Postman 1982, p.23). This would appear to be partly true access to a high volume of entertainment and media related content. However, as

the studies by Oulasvirta, A., Rattenbury, T., Ma, L., Raita, E. (2010) show, the related to checking work based email.

majority of workers involved in their study developed checking habits primarily

The effect of smartphones on the world of work

The introduction of the smartphone has further developed the Information Society by providing the ability for employees to be attached to their employer network 24/7. It could be said that this has resulted in paid time essentially increasing outside of contractual hours and encroaching on some of the activities normally associated with unpaid time and personal time. This has changed the workplace and has made working on different teams in different time zones between work and personal time. easier to manage. Conversely, this has resulted in the erosion of the boundary It could also be said that the introduction of this technology has changed the way people live their lives. The activities they carry out every day even in their personal time is now heavily influenced by how they work. The technology of the smartphone has afforded people the ability to be responsive to work related with a number of articles. tasks 24/7 and these responses are now fitted in around other personal time activities. The New York Time (2010) series of articles demonstrates this change The question of whether the way we work is changing the way we live or if the way we live is changing the way we work is really dependent on the individual.

For those who love being immersed in technology 24/7 it is just an extension of who are less comfortable with technology, they may feel overwhelmed with the appropriate boundaries to their use. This is evident on some of the user comments on the New York Times (2010) series of articles.

that characteristic to also extend that to their working habits. However, for those intrusion of work email on their smartphones and find it more difficult to impose

Conclusions

The smartphone has undoubtedly revolutionised how people communicate for

work and how they access information related to work and personal interests. It

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has also created employment as developers seek to capitalise on the market Faustian bargain in that it gives us something important but we also lose something important in the process. This would appear to be true of the

available for development of apps and other content for smartphone devices.

As Postman (1995) discusses in a 1995 interview that all new technology is like a smartphone. The benefits of the smartphone have been discussed throughout productivity, often at little expense to themselves as users are choosing to

this paper as have the negatives. They provide users with the ability to stay on

top of work outside of the office and employers in theory benefit from increased purchase the phones themselves. The principle losses would be in terms of loss make in relation to usage patterns of the devices for work related activities. Some users are happy to be connected all the time and see no issue with it. imposed boundaries in relation to their smartphone use. of personal time and the erosion of boundaries between work and personal time. I feel that it is really a personal choice that all owners of this technology need to

However, others cite that it results in increased stress, while others particularly those who have been using the devices longer state that they have consciously Much of the academic literature in this area has focussed on managerial level

users of smartphones. I feel that studies should possibly be conducted into the usage patterns of non-executive level personnel also in order to help establish appropriate HR and contractual guidelines for personal smartphone usage on company networks outside office hours.

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