Bluedorn thus questions the common notion that polychronic life strategies lead to negative health outcomes. Many studies show that the density of social networks is related to positive health outcomes. The introduction of ICTs that facilitate this kind of relational multitasking is likely to be positive for well-being. For example, Noelle Chesley documents a positive association between personal forms of ICT use and higher ratings of “feeling efective at work.”42 This is particularly the case with cell phones, and it may be that people already in demanding jobs use cell phones to coordinate and reschedule personal tasks to accommodate work, a subject I will explore in the following chapter.
What is clear from these studies is that the personal context in which multitasking takes place is of the utmost importance. Studies of multitasking that do not involve ICTs, which are much more common, confirm this. Multitasking has become pervasive because of the increased demands at work and at home, and mothers, more than fathers, generally experience multitasking as negative and stressful. Shira Ofer and Barbara Schneider found that for both mothers and fathers in dualearner families, multitasking can be a positive experience when in the company of other family members, like a spouse or child.43 By contrast, for both, multitasking at work, although associated with an increased sense of productivity, is generally perceived as a negative experience.
Multitasking as a time-management strategy is, then, a common feature of dual-earner family members’ busy lives. However its usefulness as a concept is hard to gauge. At the very least, it should be distinguished from polychronicity, as the term multitasking implies that performing multiple activities increases productivity, that is a form of work intensification. But the idea does focus attention on the quality of temporal density, and this, rather than the amount of time, per se, is consequential for perceptions of time pressure.
Neither interruptions nor multitasking are new and both long predate the introduction of digital technologies. It is too easy to presume that extensive use of ICTs is the primary cause of time pressure rather than a symptom of structural changes in the conditions of work. The lesson of the above studies is precisely that whether multitasking contributes to or alleviates time pressure depends on the broader social context in which it occurs. And so I would like to conclude on this theme.
Chapter fOur
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