23 ms·
Is full-time work bad for our brains?
- hclivess 10y agoof course it is, if you hate it but if you only watch tv outside of work, i suggest not quitting
- RankingMember 10y agoTo counter-act the click-bait title, here's the basic gist of the article, summed up by Carol Black, one of the people interviewed on the subject: “The most important thing about work is that it should be ‘good work’. If it is good, it does not matter whether full-or part-time.”
- bsbechtel 10y agoSo what is defined as good work? That reminds me of managers who say they only want the best. The best varies greatly from role to role and company to company.
- throwaway7767 10y agoThat's not in any way "the gist of the article", it's a comment made by a random person interviewed, and it's her opinion. The main subject of the article is the extensive scientific study performed by scientists at the University of Melbourne, which showed that working more than 25 hours a week decreases IQ scores in people over 40.
- stuff4ben 10y agolegalized ageism anyone?
- quantumhobbit 10y agoStretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y agoAs bad as you think this is here, trust me Korea is worse.
- Kinnard 10y agoI've gotten this sentiment before. Does it appear to be improving at all in Korea?
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y agoIf you look at the younger generation, I doubt it. Korea is a wonderful country full of extremely bright and nice people. But they're caught in an education arms race that is legitimately terrifying. Kids are schooled with incredible tenacity from 9 to 5 and then once they are finished school they attend night classes and weekend classes. I think putting a much higher weight on fluid intelligence over crystallized intelligence in the CSAT might be useful for mitigating this dynamic. However, I'm not sure what could be done do avoid the equally terrifying working hours dynamic.
- Kinnard 10y agoI wonder what impact Korean reunification would have. I imagine it would create a large leisure class, supported by a new North Korean cheap-labor underclass, with which would come a leisure culture which could impact the overall culture. Some bad, with some good.
- up_and_up 10y agoThis is why companies need to be "results driven" vs "face-time driven". "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included.
- jrcii 10y agoI always wonder what percentage of corporate America's time is spent looking busy or alt-tabbing between a spreadsheet and solitaire when the boss walks by. If you could quantify it I bet the amount of waste is staggering.
- ashark 10y agoProtip: plain text Project Gutenberg books in quarter-screen Tmux panes (under `less`, or your preferred command line text reading tool) looks almost like real work from all but the closest inspection. Less of a waste of time that Facebook/HN/Solitaire/whatever. Fortunately I've only ever worked one place where that was super-useful, and only briefly. Got three novels read while also completing my work and doing a bunch of other work that I probably didn't need to, in ~2 months' time.
- executesorder66 10y agoExcellent idea. Time to catch up on my backlog of old phrack and 2600 articles.
- superuser2 10y agoExcept employers can't capture the value of eliminating that waste, because people who can actually do 40 hours of head-down intellectual work in a 40-hour workday are unicorns. It's employees who get screwed by this - if their managers are too concerned about waste, they can't do anything like read a book or go for a walk, so they're on Facebook and Reddit, which are much less effective as breaks from focused work.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
- harkmylord 10y agoAbsolutely. How can a society flourish when people are spending all their time for someone else? Full time work leaves little time for your health, family, friends, pets, and so on.
- amelius 10y agoBut "family, friends, pets" are in the category of "someone else", right? Also by working for someone else, you make money, which you use for your health, family, etc. So either way, I don't get the point.
- ramblerman 10y agoNot sure if your being pedantic but your relationship with your 'company' and your friends/family is certainly not the same thing.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoMost of us don't work for our pets. (Unless they're cats.) Maybe the whole idea of working for someone is a strange one. Would people still work towards doing cool stuff if they were free to make/break associations on a project basis? There might not be the cycle of hyperconsumption driven by superficial novelty we have now. But would it be replaced by something more or less interesting?
- icebraining 10y agofree to make/break associations on a project basis Isn't that called freelancing?
- tehbeard 10y ago> But "family, friends, pets" are in the category of "someone else", right? someone else == no emotional ties You are going on the assumption that money earned by time not spent with loved ones is equivalent to the time that could've been spent with them. "Well then get a better job that is worth it" Not possible in a lot of instances (location, qualifications, balance of power between employed and employers). And money can't replace an afternoon in the park with your kids riding bikes (ok, hunting pokemon in this day and age, but the point still stands)
- OhHeyItsE 10y ago:( As if this industry needed any more excuses for it's blatant ageism.
- HemanHeartYou 10y agoWhat is soylent green?
- jdc0589 10y agoMy brain usually goes in to "prepare to shut-down" mode every day at about 3:30pm (having started work at ~9am). I tend to have slow mornings, and stay pretty busy/head-down for the last half of that time. The funny thing is, it doesn't really matter if I was busy working on hard technical challenges all day, or just reading articles/browsing the web; my brain shuts down the same time regardless.
- stronglikedan 10y agoThis sounds like it could be a diet thing. Have you tried eating different things for lunch to see if that affects your mid-afternoon mood?
- Mahn 10y agoI was going to suggest the same. The "prepare-to-shutdown" brain mode could well be that more blood is flowing to the stomach (and thus less to the brain) after a heavy meal.
- trentmb 10y agoI'd have zero objections to a post lunch nap.
- drawnwren 10y agoDo you have any good resources for diet things? I'm interested in this.
- 127001brewer 10y agoEat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. http://michaelpollan.com/reviews/how-to-eat/ http://michaelpollan.com/reviews/how-to-eat/
- stronglikedan 10y agoUnfortunately, I don't. I tried many different diets, but they either didn't work, or weren't sustainable. I settled on two rules, lost 50+ lbs, and have been able to sustain it for a few years now. My rules are (1) don't overeat, and (2) don't eat processed foods. It took a few months before I figured out what my portions were, since I don't feel full until about 15-20 minutes after I am. By the time I knew how much I needed to eat in one sitting, I'd become used to eating that amount, so it was a breeze. I do eat whatever I want, with the exception of processed foods. If I can't make it at home with whole ingredients, I'll likely not eat it. I do cheat every so often, but not much, and not a large amount (I love a box of Raisinettes during a movie.) As for not being able to think straight after lunch, I used to get that way when I'd eat too much. I used to love feeling full, but it would definitely affect brain function. Now, I get ill when I overeat. I also try to eat a high protein, high fiber breakfast, because it seems to get me further through the day than anything else (I eat a small late lunch).
- Mahn 10y agoCould it be that there is some selection bias in this study? I don't mean to say the conclusions are wrong per se, but I would think that people working very few hours (unemployed?) or too many hours (factory workers?) are typically less educated than those in the middle, which could explain the IQ disparity.
- JamesBarney 10y agoI don't think factory workers are more likely to work 40 hours weeks than white collar workers.
- douche 10y agoIf you're allowed to, you go after every minute of that sweet, sweet, overtime. Time and a half (or double time, if you work holidays) is a beautiful thing.
- JamesBarney 10y agoThat's over 40 vs white collar. This study was just comparing people who worked 40 vs 25. There's a lot more studies showing that working 60 vs 40 is bad for you cognition, but this one is unique in showing the same effects at a much loader working load.
- jacalata 10y agoOver the last few decades longer hours have become associated with higher earnings and higher educational backgrounds http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html http://www.nber.org/digest/jul06/w11895.html (old data but a good start)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- adamnemecek 10y agoYes. Same with school.
- xufi 10y agoAgreed especially the same with university on par in the last years. That really catches up to you
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cubano 10y agoI'm 50yo and am still learning new shit everyday...just a month ago I bit the bullet and learned enough javasc...excuse me ECMAScript, to be pretty damn dangerous :) Over the past weekend I learned docker and am now running containers all over the place...these aren't trivial things and the speed of which I'm picking stuff up is as fast, if not faster, then it has ever been for me. The point is I am 10 years older then the age this study targeted, and I find it humorous that they are telling me I am AT LEAST 25 IQ points dumber because I work 50-60 hour weeks. Plus, where do I tick the box about my lifetime of pretty hardcore drug use and its supposed effects on my IQ? Now I do get tired...physically tired...from the efforts required to keep up but besides that, my anecdotal experience goes against this research.
- stevenwiles 10y agoYep, I'm just like you. About to turn 60, been a daily hardcore drug user for most of my life, and I've been picking up new languages and technologies every day, all while working 60 hours a week. I find it quite hurmorous indeed that there are those that would suggest that we are not intellectually capable. Glad to know there is someone else like me out there. :)
- softawre 10y agoWhat class of drugs? If you don't mind.
- theAnonMe 10y agoJust registered this account to discuss. This is something I worry about, I am a 31 year old dev, only learned to code 5 years ago. I smoke around 28 grams of strong cannabis (kush and haze) a week. Between the ages of 17-25 every weekend consisted either cocaine, ecstasy, mdma, ketamine or whatever really. I currently feel as although I'm playing with as much tech as ever I can't hold as much state in my head when developing and resort to the debugger a lot more. My cannabis intake has gone up in the past year probably. You think its the bud?
- bluejellybean 10y ago
- bpyne 10y agoIt would be interesting to see a study controlling for the "sandwich years". My suspicion is that the sandwich years on top of 40+ hour/week employment causes a lot of cognitive degradation. But, 40+ hour/week employment without the sandwich years would see significantly less, if any, degradation.
- cauterized 10y agoWhat are sandwich years?
- bpyne 10y agoFrom the article: "McKenzie’s team is now looking into the driving factors behind their research such as the “sandwich years” when many adults have at least one person to look after, a child or an elderly parent, on top of working full-time." This terminology stuck out because I'm smack in the middle of it right now. It's a regular conversation piece when my wife and I get together with other parents.
- cauterized 10y agoWhat are sandwich years?
- gerbilly 10y agoNothing is more exhausting than tryimg to look busy when there is nothing to do. As a freelancer i got some contracts through headhunters that were like that. Looking back now, i should have quit and found something else.
- deagle50 10y agoThis is why I work from home. I can work in sprints and take breaks to make food, exercise, run errands and play video games. You will have to drag me back to an office 9-5 at gunpoint.
- stevenwiles 10y agoWhat is the easiest way to transition to 100% work from home?
- deagle50 10y agoI had to transition to consulting which meant my productivity was now measured by billable hours and project deadlines vs "butt in chair". It took me over a year to find this type of job. Since then I moved into pre-sales which gives me even more flexibility.
- sp527 10y agoI worked three years full time and now on a startup. I've come to realize that most of the performance improvement for me with the latter is attributable to a difference in sleep duration and quality. I'm someone who needs variability (+/- 2-3 hrs) in when I go to sleep and little to none in total duration. This is especially important when you're exercising consistently (and doubly so for HIIT). Work life normally doesn't account for sleep, but I feel like it may very well be all the reason for the problems we see. It's no secret that most Americans are experiencing chronic sleep deprivation. And that's linked to a host of other issues like obesity, learning impairment, low energy/productivity, increased stress, etc. In other words, it has a cascading effect on everything else. Most people need around 8 hours per night to function normally and get only around 6.
- justacat 10y agoKind of off-topic, but what has your experience with HIIT and sleep been? I am just starting, and being somewhat obsessive about sleep would be interested to hear your experience.
- sp527 10y agoIf you're obsessive about sleep, I think you'll be fine :) My mistake was doing 3 20 min sessions of pretty intense HIIT a week and then not getting nearly enough sleep (averaged maybe 6 hrs). I felt chronic fatigue at work - it feels like a heavy wave of exhaustion very different from typical feelings of tiredness. You'll notice your work performance degrade correspondingly. Under normal circumstances you might be able to get away with bad sleep for a handful of days or even a few weeks. Not so with HIIT. You have to have an athlete's level of attention to your recovery. All that said, HIIT is the most effective kind of exercise I've encountered and I recommend it wholeheartedly!
- justacat 10y agoThanks for the reply. I've been easing my way in with just 30sec on, 30 sec off for 5 minutes a day. I did two sets on day, and had to get up early the next day and was wiped out. Good to hear your experience!
- EGreg 10y agoFull-time work in most professions is just the appearance of full-time work. It actually sets up a culture of dependency, much like welfare, except with people selling their days for money. Many of them don't dare build value for themselves because they are afraid of losing a steady paycheck, getting sued etc.
- tomdell 10y agoWork is too ambiguous and complex of a concept to directly state that 25 hours a week is optimum over a certain age. It seems like this article is partially premised on research done on assembly line workers, who are, as far as I'm aware, actually working and doing physical labor for most of the time they're at work. I wonder how well this applies to mental labor? Beyond that, as some people have already commented, white-collar jobs tend to involve a lot of downtime.
- ashark 10y agoLeft to my own devices I'm pretty sure I'd work a variable number of hours a week, going as high as 80, and probably averaging in the neighborhood of 60. The tricky part for me is that breaking 25ish actually-productive hours a week isn't compatible with a steady 40ish hour a week job where I'm doing mostly the same thing every week. Ideally I'd spend 40hrs studying math one week, 80hrs developing a game next week, 30hrs landscaping/gardening + 30hrs building furniture the next, 50 hours writing fiction the next, et c. It's doing more-or-less the same work every week, whether I'm in the mood for it or not, that places such a low upper bound on my total productivity.
- stevenwiles 10y agoSame here, left to my own devices, I would probably work around 120 hours a week.
- JamesBarney 10y agoWhy do you think it's premised on assembly line workers. I don't see that anywhere. I think you might be mistaken.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- patatino 10y agoI talked to my boss and told him I want work only 90% for the same salary because I would still have the same productivity. He agreed! Some times you simply have to ask
- bumbledraven 10y agoThis article makes no attempt to distinguish correlation from causation.
- acd 10y agoSomething similar has been measured in the game industry where Gamasutra has compared working hours crunching vs game review scores. Here is the link http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150113/233922/The_Game_Outcomes_Project_Part_3_Game_Development_Factors.php http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/PaulTozour/20150113/233922/Th...
- DaniFong 10y agoThis is a paper on the work that the article cited: https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2016n07.pdf https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s... There is a critical mathematical mistake with their use of statistical analysis which basically, as an artifact, bakes in this "conclusion" into the "results". It comes about because they manually add "Working hours-squared/100" into the factor analysis, and then, low and behold, there is a parabola correlated with the data. It's a downward facing one, because an upward facing one, or no correlation will not match as well. But the model is not reality. There are numerous other conceptual problems with the study, like "what is work?" and a lack of real data on the nature of work beyond what is correlated with socioeconomic indicators, like University education, however, it is remarkable that even at the level of statistic analysis, the work is critically flawed. I am also disappointed that nobody else on hacker news seems to have pointed this out. Hopefully, this can serve as yet another example, of how to interpret and understand data the new, be it hacker news or otherwise, presents us with. Statistical data analysis is both hard, and often times misleading.
- xapata 10y agoI skimmed the paper and couldn't find this "critical mistake". The nonlinear model you describe is common and appropriate to situations like this. y ~ x + x^2 A mistake would be y ~ y^2 And even then, it would be appropriate if we're modeling an autoregressive process. y_{t} ~ y_{t-1}
- DaniFong 10y agoI'll try to state in this language what I think is the conceptual flaw. The stated conclusion is "there is an optimum number of work hours, and it is less than 40." However, their method of analysis is this: "We fit a non-linear model that is a quadratic model cognitive ability y ~ ax + b x^2 for x work hours / week, and we found a statistical optimum around 25 hours" The problem with this is that you're trying to find the best fit of a parabola to the data. And you have tons of samples where the work hours are very few / none (unemployed). Because there is a fairly strong correlation with unemployment and cognitive indicators, the parabola is already being "forced down" near hours worked = 0. Now in this parabola model of estimated cognitive indicators vs work hours, either you are going to get a minima -- and it goes to infinity at working hours -> infinity (of course in real life it cannot really do this, because we only have so many hours in the week, but the statistical model will suggest it) -- or, you are going to get a maxima, which is what actually happens. It could well be in the data that the indicators are that there is roughly flat, or even increasing response of cognitive indicators to working hours when the number of working hours is beyond a nominal value, but that the unemployed population has somewhat lower indicators. In this case the model will automatically become a downward curving, parabola with a maxima, suggesting decline with increasing work hours -- even though this is not what the data directly suggests. This maxima, the fact that there even is a "work hour optimum" that is a smooth, quadratic curve, is a mirage -- the model is not the data. A remaining question is why the optimum is less than 40 hours. It is relatively easy to construct a statistical case in which it is a curve fitting artifact, despite that there is no direct data even at at the suggested optimum. One could in principle check to see if this is the case. The data may be available. For now, there's few graphs on page 20. It really doesn't seem to me that there is a significant distinction between the part time and full time groups -- in fact, the biggest difference is that more women who have a high reading score are not unemployed. Men who have a higher symbols score are more likely to be full-time employed instead of part-time, slightly -- but the converse is true for men with higher reading scores. The difference is not very distinct. https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_series/wp2016n07.pdf https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s...