Working on mobile devices from home may affect family life

Too much office workload? Do not bring it home as it might spoil intimacy with your partner and affect your professional life too, a new study has warned

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Too much office workload? Do not bring it home as it might spoil intimacy with your partner and affect your professional life too, a new study has warned. According to researchers, using a mobile device at home for work purposes has negative implications for the employee's work life and also on the spouse.

"There is plenty of research on technology and how it affects employees. We wanted to see if this technology-use" carried back home would affect the spouse negatively, said co-author of the study, Wayne Crawford, assistant professor at University of Texas at Arlington. For the study, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, researchers surveyed 344 married couples.

All the participants were full-time workers and used mobile devices or tablets at home for their work purposes. The survey results showed that use of a mobile device during family time resulted in lower job satisfaction and lower job performance.

"It's really no surprise that conflict was created when a spouse is using a mobile device at home. They are sometimes engaging in work activities during family time. What that ultimately leads to, though, is trouble at work for both spouses," the researcher said.

"So, whether companies care or don't about employees being plugged in, those firms need to know that the relationship tension created by their interaction with their employees during non-work hours ultimately leads to work-life trouble," the researcher added.

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