I think there is another angle to this, which is that the distinctions between "being at work" and "clocking out" have, for many people who work online all day (and especially for many new to WFH people these past 2 years), faded and faded until now people feel like they are permanently on-call, permanently at the whim of their employer's/manager's/colleague's demands.

A solution, in addition to interacting with real people in person more, is to push back hard and rigidly control when and how your work makes contact with the rest of your life.

Personally, I'm a zero contact after work hours kind of guy. When my end-of day hits, I will not answer a single thing that is work related. My colleagues have learned to accept it and the world has not ended or the company failed. People are hired and paid accordingly to respond to off hours emergencies. I am not one of those people.

Obviously, people will have different roles and relationships with their work, so this type of thing won't work for everyone. But the key is more that you take matters into your own hands and that your interactions with your work become the result of a decision you make.

I am also this kind of person (0 contact outside work), and I also want to add that I had to (strongly) push back when I was contacted on my private phone while on vacation.

I literally had to tell my colleagues RTFM and don't bother me on my time off.

World kept spinning

I think this comment touches on something very deep. Spending time in online spaces seems to be profoundly damaging to our mental health.

What exactly is it about online spaces that does this ? It’s little wonder that many are burning out after a year of being perpetually online.

However I would also like to add that the amount of uncertainty in the world and in our jobs has gone up. You never really know if you’re doing “enough”. And the internet exacerbates it.

> You never really know if you’re doing “enough”

I think you really hit the nail on the head here. We really do, almost all of us in this modern tech world, have an order of magnitude more leverage in our day-to-day activities than the previous generation did. We have a theoretical (though very uncertain) capability of making a marked difference to a chunk of the world (e.g. affecting thousands of people) by putting in an extra hour of work, often without necessitating the involvement of anyone else. To paraphrase uncle Ben, this great power can then put a heavy personal responsibility on our shoulders, even if there isn't a pointy-haired boss breathing down our neck.

Although the way that people are evaluated in jobs is also open ended. So it cuts from both sides.

> I think it’s pretty clear we have an epidemic of burnout on our hands

I agree, but I also agree with your observation that a lot of the burnout is coming from the activities that people choose to fill their free time with.

I see a lot of people in the tech communities boasting about quitting social media, but they then go on to spend countless hours every day on non-traditional social media like Reddit or HN. Or they endlessly scroll news articles and outrage bait that isn’t really relevant to their lives. Or they spend hours upon hours in video games or watching TV. Or they immerse themselves in drama around things that don’t directly impact them, like anti-vaxxer debates or Twitch live-streamer drama or online culture war arguments.

I’ve also noticed several common themes among the burnout-resistant people I’ve worked with, even at some very demanding jobs. These people tend to be unaware of the latest news headlines or the latest culture war debates. They aren’t keeping up with weekly COVID case counts or fretting over the latest anti-vax trends because they aren’t interested in the drama. They program in their language and framework of choice and aren’t concerned about using the latest and greatest every time the landscape changes (with allowances for steady learning and adapting to mature trends). They’re happy with their job even if it isn’t paying top of market year after year. Most importantly, they spend their free time doing things that make them happy and active instead of angry or lazy.

Unfortunately, I think HN comments and articles tend more toward the former group because debate is interesting and results in engagement. That’s partially why burnout seems to be an epidemic especially in HN discussions, whereas the situation isn’t as universally dire in my real-world experience. Still a problem, but there’s more to it than blaming jobs and Facebook/Instagram/Twitter.

Like you said, a lot of the idle activities that people choose to fill their free time are actually quite draining.

Burnout is from people doing tasks that bring little fulfillment for most of their one life on Earth. If you have 1 free minute in 1 year, it's irrelevant what you do on that 1 free minute. This is an exaggeration, but it's to show my point. People want to be spending time doing things they like. 40 hours a week is way too much time spent doing the opposite, regardless of what you do outside of those 40 hours.

You think of burnout being endemic but not because of overwork and the struggles of life but because of video games and social media, when you're spending the better part of a third or in some countries even half of the day at work?

> I think it’s pretty clear we have an epidemic of burnout on our hands. I think it’s a new phenomenon.

During the 1880s, children under 12 were working 16 hours a week in UK factories. So probably not as new as you'd think :)

Bah! I meant 16 hours a day :headslap:

Do you have OnCall shifts?