The prevalence of remote work comes with a lot of benefits and a lot of challenges, too. One critical challenge that has recently come to the fore is Digital Burnout.
What is digital burnout?
Do you know how people get burned out at work? Well, it is similar, but this time, it is particular to digital tools.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) 2019 defined burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed,” they add that it can affect a person’s health.
The WHO added that burned-out individuals have “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job and reduced professional efficacy.”
Working from home has significantly increased the frequency and the way people use digital tools. They use it for communication – to send messages to colleagues and bosses. They use it for social reasons – like checking on a colleague, even outside work hours. These tools are also used for meetings and conferences, for preparing and turning in reports, and even for preparing to-do lists and scheduling things to be done.
Succinctly put, there is a tool or tools for everything you do at work. From social interactions to all forms of internal and external communications, technology is indispensable now. But it is also fast, leading to digital burnout among remote work staff.
This started as far back as the Coronavirus pandemic lockdown when, after working for months from home, people started complaining of burnout. Some might have questioned the reason for the burnout, seeing as they were working from home, but we now understand it as digital burnout.
A 2019 Workplace Productivity Report showed that 87% of American office workers spent an average of seven hours a day staring at screens, and more than half of 1057 people reported fatigue or depression stemming from digital overload.
There is the fact that they intrude on our time, of course, especially when you are about to have a shower and you get a notification on your Teams app showing you that your boss has just initiated a meeting outside official work hours. But this is just one part of all that digital burnout entails.
Common symptoms of digital burnout
Fatigue or reduced energy/motivation
If you feel constantly tired, even at the start of a new work day, it might indicate that you are experiencing digital burnout. Often, this will happen alongside other symptoms.
Insomnia, headaches, and muscle pain
This mostly follows the stress, and you get less sleep, both in quality and quantity. Headaches and muscle pains can also accompany it, and if a medical check shows nothing is wrong with your health, you may be dealing with digital burnout.
Forgetfulness and inability to concentrate
With the constant beeps of notifications, emails, phone calls, conference meetings, and reminders, it could become hard to concentrate on a single task, and you would find yourself forgetting details.
Decline in Performance
Once you are dealing with the other symptoms, performance first stagnates and then naturally begins to decline.
Anxiety, Depression, and Frustration
What to do about digital burnout?
The first thing to do is take a leave. Don’t wait till you get to the point where you mentally disengage from the job. Take a week’s leave or two from work. Ensure it’s a clean break, not where you are on leave but still working. Turn off all notifications and emails, and take a break from all your gadgets. If you notice a staff is experiencing a digital burnout, have them take a break.
Create boundaries and be strict with them. There is no point working remotely if it means working all around the clock. Have definite hours for work, and if you have to go outside of these hours now and then, it is cool. But you can’t be on call at all hours and every day of the week.
Work-life balance is necessary, too. It is okay to work remotely, but make sure you are not sitting inside your house all the days of the week. Once you finish work, stroll, see a friend, or garden at the back of the house. Whatever it is, do something that does not involve a digital device, and for context, television is a digital device.
If you are an employer, you should encourage your employees to do this regularly.