Kate Orton-Johnson: Innovations should improve lives, not make them harder

Dr Kate Orton-Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology at The University of Edinburgh for Royal Bank of Scotland

Mobile technologies offer us diverse spaces and tools to create our online identities and engage with our social networks. These technological innovations encourage the constant broadcasting, via social media platforms, of the (often) mundane activities and experiences of our daily lives. We stay digitally connected with family, friends and acquaintances across a range of apps and platforms.

While this connectivity can offer a source of joy, friendship, humour and support, it can also be a source of anxiety and stress. A recent study from the Royal Bank of Scotland revealed that Scotland’s young people are  feeling this pressure the most, with over a third (36 per cent) overwhelmed by the need to live up to the lives they see on social media.

Our social media feeds are filled with carefully curated images of other people and their seemingly perfect lives. We watch each other and are aware we are being watched; what social scientists have called social surveillance. But this surveillance, as well as creating and solidifying social bonds, may also be accompanied by stress and anxiety as we compare our lives, often unfavourably, with others. Royal Bank’s findings highlighted that sadly, over a third (36 per cent) of 18-24-year-olds feel under pressure to match, equal or better the lives of others as a result of viewing content on social media, and one in four (28 per cent) of 25-34-year olds also admit to feeling this way.

A culture of connectivity or ‘always-on’ accessibility extends beyond our social networks and personal lives and can also create pressures and demands on our work/life balance. The presence of mobile phones as objects that are never far from our pockets, bags and bodies blurs the boundaries between our private and our public lives.

For many of us, that might mean that the first thing we do when we wake up in the morning and the last thing we do before we go to bed is to look at our phones and check our emails or our social media feeds. By doing this, we create an environment in which we feel we need and want to be always connected in case we miss out on opportunities, on invitations or on things we have to do.

The blurring of these boundaries may have far-reaching benefits for how we juggle our responsibilities and our time, enabling us to balance work, social and family demands with flexible working patterns and locations. Mobile devices make it possible for us to interweave leisure with work and to remain responsive to requests while participating in other activities.

The findings from the Royal Bank of Scotland uncovered insights into the pressures Scots feel when it comes to ‘always-on’ that perhaps we haven’t spoken, or even thought about, yet. The world is making technological innovations at a rate of knots, but it is crucial that we use it to help improve and add value to our lives first.

Expectations of around the clock digital availability can undermine our attempts to carve out meaningful divisions between work time and time we can call our own. Mobile devices have removed the physical and temporal boundaries of the working day and can hamper our ability to switch off digitally and mentally outside of working hours.

Almost 40 per cent of Scots feel the need to be ‘always on’ and constantly available to friends, family and their employers. We may not respond to out-of-hours emails but the fact that they are there on our devices, easily accessible and habitual, means we are allowing ourselves to feel the pressures of connectivity.

As a society, we need to start thinking about the impact of this culture and the need to be within reach at all times and ensure we use new technology to simplify and streamline our lives and not add yet another layer of additional pressures.

Dr Kate Orton-Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Digital Sociology at The University of Edinburgh for Royal Bank of Scotland