Your mobile phone is making you feel burnt out and exhausted, study says

Using phones to work during leisure time and before sleeping contributes to feeling overworked

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Mobile phone usage has “blurred” the line between work and leisure, leading to Britons feeling exhausted and burnt out, a new report has found.

The Burnt Out Britain report by think tank Onward revealed that advancing technology in mobile phones has allowed people to work more time than they should while carrying out leisure activities such as spending time with friends.

“The blurring of the work-personal life distinction is the leading cause of burnout,” the report, authored by senior researcher Jenevieve Treadwell, released on Monday (3 April) said.

A rising number of workers are experiencing burnout, a state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by stress, but the Onward study found that this is not due to working longer hours or sleeping less as previously thought.

Researchers found that working adults are sleeping an average of 30 minutes more a day compared to 50 years ago, despite other polls showing that more than a third of people say they do not get enough sleep and a fifth feel tired all the time.

In addition, the Onward study found overall, people “are not working significantly longer hours”. This is in contrast to “claims of large increases in working time”, as Treadwell wrote that working time has “actually decreased for men by two per cent”.

However, the report acknowledged that women have seen working time increased for women by 13 per cent. It also acknowledged that women still play a disproportionately large part in caring for the home and children.

It also highlighted people who work in the weekends, who are most likely to be low-income earners, as being overworked. Night workers, weekend workers, and overworkers have less time for sleep and self-care.

Researchers found that a “higher tempo of life” in which people are “chopping and changing” between different activities more than ever is contributing to feelings of exhaustion and being overwhelmed.

It said that “workers that bring work into their personal life are less likely to do activities that help them relax”, which “contributes to higher levels of exhaustion and a lower sense of wellbeing”.

The report also pointed to another study that showed using mobile phones before bed correlates with poorer quality of sleep, as using a phone after the lights are off has been associated with short sleep durations, excessive daytime sleepiness and insomnia.

“The symptoms of a manic modern world are real, but the diagnosis is wrong,” Treadwell wrote. “We are not all working more, sleeping less and feeling more rushed.

“But our push to do it all and reliance on multitasking is creating a higher tempo of life and breaking down the barriers between different areas of time, leaving us feeling burnt out, tired and under pressure.”