The Dutch Politics of Burnouts:
How a Self-Help Application, Informed by Self-Tracking
of Activity and Health via Wearable Technology, Can
Never Be the Sole Solution to Burnout Prevention
Author: Jasper van Tilburg Date: 29 June 2018
Supervisor: Niels van Doorn Second reader: Michael Stevenson
Program: MA New Media and Digital Cultures Institution: University of Amsterdam
2 Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Niels van Doorn. In particular, because Van Doorn helped me regain my focus and get back on track, after it became painfully clear to me, that I was not going to be able to write three theses in one. I would like to thank my sister for providing me feedback. I would also like to thank David, for help of many kinds, and Laura, whom both found time to provide input, when I was not sure if I would receive input in time. I am especially grateful to Petra, Thomas, Maria, Sara, Peter and Luke (you know who you are), for sharing their personal, interesting and sometimes heavy stories/experiences/thoughts concerning their own burnouts. Lastly, I would like to thank burnout coach Ben, for providing me psychological insights and sharing his expertise on burnouts.
3 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements 2
Table of contents 3
Chapter 1: Introduction 4
Chapter 2: Theoretical framework 8
2.1: Technology as Pharmakon 9
2.2: The contemporary late-capitalist society 11
2.3: A 24/7 society that decreases sleep and increases exhaustion 12 2.4: The contemporary Hyper-Taylorist, agile world of work 15
2.5: Self-tracking activity and health 20
2.6: Burnouts 22
Chapter 3: Methodology 25
3.1: Methods 25
3.2: Research design 30
Chapter 4: Findings 39
4.1: The burnout subject 40
4.2: The production of the burnout subject 42
4.3: The Dutch politics of burnout prevention 50
4.3.1: The burnout subject as Quantified Self’er? 50 4.3.2: The solution? – Totem, Movir and the Bobbi 53
Chapter 5: Conclusion 60
Bibliography 63
Media List 69
Appendices 70
Appendix 1: Consent form workers whom befell burnout 70
4 Chapter 1: Introduction
When I look around me stress, exhaustion, pressures and burnouts seem to be the talk of the day. Not only in my personal circle, but also in (popular) media. Fear-of-missing-out, endless possibilities, rising mental pressures and the drive to prove oneself in both private and work-related environments, raise concerns about a “society of zombies” (NOSop3 n. pag.). This, increasingly becomes apparent among young people. The concerns are raised to such an extent, that the Dutch National Institute for
Public Health and the Environment, begins to fear for young people’s and future generations’, general
mental and physical wellbeing (Van der Geest n. pag.). This results in numerous action plans and campaigns, closely related to other disorders such as depressions and chronic fatigue, to stimulate society to talk about it and tackle the phenomenon head on (Rijksoverheid n. pag.). Meanwhile, burnouts also become more apparent in work-related environments, with an increase of high-wage white-collar workers befalling burnout and costing employers increasing amounts of money (Nos n. pag.). But, what exactly is a burnout? Is a burnout not merely becoming a fashion statement, a fad of the contemporary Dutch society? In the ‘old days’ referred to as ‘overstrained’, because of ‘hard low-wage physical labor’ and ‘busier periods at work’? No. As this research will show, a burnout is not merely work-related. It is constituted by a complex intertwining of socioeconomic, psychological and technological forces at play in both private and work-related environments. Furthermore, it is not merely a mental or physical disorder that can be ‘cured’ with a wonder medicine. The symptoms of burnouts can be masked, short-term at best, often resulting in ongoing long-term causations. Consequently, prevention is key.
When looking at burnout prevention and technology in the Dutch society, two contrasting corporate strategical discourses are apparent. On the one hand, there is a Dutch insurance company
Interpolis, enforced by Dutch judoka Edith Bosch, which promotes a multi-year health program. Via
this program, Interpolis campaigns for a ‘digital detox’, meaning less technology for more energy (Interpolis n. pag.). On the other hand, there is the 2017 business case of Dutch occupational disability insurer Movir and tech company Totem Open Health (from here on Totem), enforced by Totem’s wearable self-tracking activity and health device (the Bobbi). At the third Dutch Hacking Health1,
Movir asked itself the question if it was possible to measure stress levels and create a tool to monitor and help prevent burnouts. As occupational disability insurer, Movir is aware that there is no wonder medicine to ‘cure’ a burnout. A condition that, according to a representative of Totem, in almost half of the cases has stress as its main cause. Totem, at the time still a tech company, complemented Movir’s lack of technological knowledge with their already-existent wearable. Together, Movir and Totem wondered whether or not variations in heart rates (ECG-data) could offer insights as indicator
1 The Dutch Hacking Health is a hackathon in which several teams of ‘health hackers’ pitch an idea to solve a
health sector-related problem. Other contestants with differing backgrounds can join a team, in which, thereafter, they work 24/7 for three days on a solution and, above all, a working prototype. All with the aim to make the health sector better and smarter.
5 of stress levels. Under the name #stopstress, the team pitched their problem, method and possible solution. The plan was to collect ECG-data via the Bobbi, translate the data via an algorithm and, with that algorithm, create a burnout prevention tool. In specific, the early signalling of the symptoms of stress, was to be translated into cognitive behavioral change models, which eventually would prevent burnouts in the future. Creating a working prototype of the self-help application turned out to be too ambitious. Totem as company does not exist anymore and the contact between Movir and Totem is non-existent.
The fact that the self-help application eventually was not produced, does not mean that the technological dichotomy in Dutch society’s perspective on burnout prevention, cannot, or should not, be problematized. Especially, if the phenomenon is a society-broad problem. In comparing and contrasting different perspectives on society and technology, provided by Stiegler, Morozov, McLuhan, Williams, Wajcman and Hassan, I aim to create a more thorough understanding of the contemporary Dutch phenomenon of burnouts and burnout prevention. I do so by means of answering the following research question:
How can the analysis of (wearable) technology implementation into private and work-related environments help us understand the phenomenon of burnouts in the contemporary late- capitalist society?
Since, exhaustion could be seen as the core symptom of burnouts (Han, Schaufeli and Greaney) and seems to have a politics of its own, this thesis uses Greaney’s concept of a politics of exhaustion. Greaney states: “A politics of exhaustion is one that would be alert to the social circumstances in which exhaustion is produced, the differences and inequalities within exhaustion, and the terms under which the exhausted get to speak of their plight” (253). Consequently, empirical ‘lived experiences’ of workers whom befell burnout, drive this thesis. By means of a grounded theories method, these lived experiences ‘ground’, modify, test and extend transdisciplinary theories in interdiscursive,
situationally-specific contexts. Since, I am not a psychology or social sciences student,
such a method enables me to create a new, thorough understanding of burnouts via theoretically-informed themes. With this, I hope to inform society at large and, on a micro-level; policymakers and campaign managers.
Asking such a meta-question, demands performative analysis set in a clearly defined context. Before explaining the scope of the research, a few choices concerning the research question need to be addressed. The fact that the term ‘(wearable) technology implementation’ is broad, is something I am aware of. However, in this thesis, the focus will not lie on the different types of wearable technology, but on the ways they are implemented in broader socioeconomic contexts. In this sense,
implementation is understood twofold: as usage in both private and work-related environments and as implementation into policies. Focussing on one-, or, a few specific products/brands, like the Fitbit, would be insufficient to examine what is at stake. Moreover, approaching these technologies from a
6 cause-effect-, or, either-or-perspective, would completely miss discussing the critical dimensions, and the meaning of these dimensions, in which these technologies are implemented. This because these products are part of ‘something bigger’ and not solely responsible for the constitution of the
contemporary situation. Hence, in this thesis, wearable technology2 concerns technology implemented
in private and work-related environments, their capacity to blur both environments into one and their impact on-, challenges to- and aid in burnouts and burnout prevention.
The research question for this thesis is set in the context of the contemporary Dutch late-capitalist society. The choice to set it in a Dutch context not only had to do with me being a Dutch student at a Dutch university, but also with the phenomenon of burnouts being a pressing matter in my personal environment and the Dutch society at large. In this context, what makes capitalism ‘late’ is mainly the increasing importance of knowledge as driving economic change, instead of, factors such as capital itself and labor. Knowledge is understood as quantified, calculable and predictable science, but also (digital) technology. This results in several academic narratives, generally presented as: cognitive capitalism, platform capitalism, ‘speedy’, or, accelerated capitalism, digital economy, knowledge economy, information economy etc. (one does not exclude the other). But why should we care? Because, in Western late-capitalist societies, the welfare state is declining (Jessop) and
neoliberal capitalism reigns. Broader socioeconomic and technological forces, which hugely impact society and the world of work. With work always being a factor in the constitution of burnouts, the world of work needs to be explored. I do so via academics such as Moore, Gregg, Berardi, Franklin, Van Doorn and Ngai. In implementing technologies, for instance: increasingly pervasive wearable devices that enable self-tracking activity and health (Lupton and Sharon), late-capitalism is invading all-of-life activities. It does so with the aim to decrease costs, always in search of new markets to increase efficiency, productivity, predictability and above all: profits. This results in increasing risks for all workers, also white-collar workers whom provided the empirical data in this research, and a promotion of autonomy and self-responsibilization. Workers loose safety nets, whilst self-management becomes the new management.
It is not surprising that increasing stress, pressure and exhaustion are being problematized in academic debates, with some even stating that these forces could only result in more burnouts. However, as explained before, exhaustion and burnouts are subjective experiences, which can only be understood in the situational contexts of private and work-related environments. The datasets that are created in this thesis, mainly consist out of interviews with workers whom befell burnout, a burnout coach and representatives of both Totem and Movir. These datasets are analysed by means of a critical discourse analysis. Because the focus of this thesis is on the contemporary Dutch society, all
2 To make it more concrete: the types of hardware that will be discussed are: laptops, tablets, smartphones,
smartwatches and self-tracking of activity and health devices. The tools used, for differing reasons in both private and work-related environments, are: social- and communicative networking sites and applications, productivity-, self-help- and activity and health tracking-applications, but also key performance systems in, for instance, work-related environments.
7 interviewed workers are Dutch white-collar workers differing in age. Hence, the proposed theoretical themes are situational and contextual as well. They, for instance, are not directly applicable to low-wage service work, like food services or cleaning, but could inform future research and open-up debates. In this thesis, it will become apparent how contemporary socioeconomic and technological forces, together, greatly effect workers and the society at large. These forces do produce burnout subjects, but, that is not to say all workers are burnout subjects. By all means, the phenomenon is a lot more complex and can certainly not be ‘solved’ or prevented by means of a self-help application. This thesis is built up as follows: the theoretical framework in Chapter 2 contrasts and compares theories on the contemporary late-capitalist (work) society, self-tracking of activity and health, and burnouts, to create theoretical lenses that need to be extended, tested and grounded. Chapter 3 constitutes the methods used- and research design of this thesis. It explains how the empirical data is produced and, more importantly, explains what will come of the theoretical lenses and data used in Chapter 4. This chapter embodies one extensive and thorough findings chapter, which will be concluded in Chapter 5. As stated before, this thesis uses a grounded theories method to answer the proposed research question and, thereby, contributes to an understanding of the
phenomenon of burnouts from a technological perspective. Therefore, first, a theoretical framework exploring main theories, critics and debates needs to be established, which will be done in the coming chapter.
8 Chapter 2: Theoretical framework
In this chapter a theoretical framework is constructed to constitute the context for and scope of this thesis and create theoretical lenses, through which the empirical data is analyzed in the Chapter 4. The research question is set in the context of the contemporary late-capitalist society, in which the
implementation of (wearable) technology, into both private and work-related environments, could be understood as ambiguous. Therefore, first and foremost, it is necessary to explore this ambiguity in technology as being a Pharmakon (Stiegler), which embodies what it ‘enables’, but also what it could ‘destruct’. What it enables is usually promoted in a technological solutionist fashion (Morozov), which flattens broader socioeconomic contexts. When researching society and technology effectively
(McLuhan and Williams), two opposing stances need to be combined, rather than opposed. On the one hand, a social constructivist perspective, which understands society as shaping technology (Wajcman). And, on the other hand, a technological determinist perspective, which understands technology as a variable shaping society (Hassan). Hence, if combined, broader socioeconomic and technological forces, could be grounded in micro-level experiences.
To understand the broader socioeconomic forces and contextualize the broader late-capitalist society3, the second section will provide two main macro economical transformations (Jessop and
Foucault). This to provide an understanding of the broader contemporary late-capitalist society, in the third section, as one in which sleep deteriorates (Crary), all of life activities become performance (Ngai and Van Doorn), pseudo-performance enhancers are booming (Crary and Han) and exhaustion seems to be the talk of the day (Han, Greaney, Szymanski, Neckel et al. and Schaufeli). The
combination of economical, technological and social forces at play, are currently being under addressed in understandings of burnouts, because in modern Western countries, burnouts are
equivalent to mere occupational burnouts (Schaufeli). Even though, it needs to be understood as part of the research, it does link burnouts more to work environments and the changes inherent to it, than for instance depressions or chronic fatigue syndromes. Hence, it is necessary to ‘dive into the world of work’ in the fourth section. The ‘world of work’ is explored by means of a Foucauldian genealogy4 of
managerial tactics and strategies as subjectivication processes. The genealogy starts with Taylorism, explores re-Taylorisation (Moore) and ends with the contemporary late-capitalist society of work5.
This society of work, is one of hyper-Taylorism (Roldán, Russell, Ramirez et al, Juravich and Franklin) and agile management systems (Moore): increasing mechanization, constant change,
3 As explained in the introduction: what makes capitalism ‘late’ in this context, is the increase of importance of
knowledge (scientific and technological) compared to the labor force.
4 A historiographic approach, focussing on the constitution of thought, power and knowledge as discursive
forms, and, thereby, the position of the subject as situational and contextualized construct (Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy n. pag.). These discursive forms should never be taken at face-value, but contested and compared.
5 I used a similar approach in a former essay for the University of Amsterdam’s elective called Platform
9 predictability-management-through-limitation and autonomy are central. In this society, work is, for a lot of workers, seen as the most significant demonstration of success and identity (Gregg and Smith) as will be grounded in Chapter 4.
The fourth and fifth section form the end of this framework. The fifth section explores socioeconomic and technological forces in both private and work-related environments, via an understanding of health and activity (self-)management, by means of self- and other tracking devices. Since, this thesis is concerned with burnouts, in specific, burnout-related health and activity tracking, the last section will provide a theoretical understanding of burnouts. Additionally, a body of cognitive, behavioral psychological articles is used, to explore existing empirical researches on burnouts,
technology and work. This is also necessary because I am not a psychology student and these insights and perspectives otherwise would be under addressed. But why even problematize burnout prevention by means of self-tracking and self-management in the first place? After all, is not the prevention of burnouts, whether or not via technologies, what everyone wants? Right? That might be the case, but what this theoretical framework will make clear, before opening up the debates with lived experiences; technologies are just not that one-sided…
2.1: Technology as Pharmakon
The implementation of technology and the effects they constitute, differ in debates on technology and society. For instance, technologies could be understood as a Pharmakon. According to Stiegler, a Pharmakon constitutes, on the one hand, a healthy psychic apparatus and, on the other, relations which are artificial and destructive (2-3). Stiegler explains that technologies offer positive actions in, for instance, life or work, but also support negative, addictive behaviors. To put it simpler: a Pharmakon internalizes what it might enable, but also inhibits factors that demand care and need to be paid attention to (Stiegler 4). In doing so, new means of attention could be formed (Stiegler 4). Such a new means of attention, restores intention in the processes of technological development. According to Williams, technologies are always developed with certain purposes in mind. He explains that these purposes are direct, “known social needs, purposes and practices to which the technology is not marginal but central” (293). Often, technologies are introduced in a technological solutionist fashion (Morozov 5), which means they are promoted as providing the sole solution for a proposed problem. According to Morozov, a Sillicon Valley-driven culture6 of ‘solving problems’ articulates statements
of efficiency and technological perfection. He states that not everything needs to be fixed and constant fixing also increases the number of problems people see (6). Moreover, merely answering to ‘fixing’ known social needs, purposes and practices, is problematic, because it flattens the complexity and context of the problem. However, the same goes for Morozov’s proposed increase of problems.
6 San Francisco’s technology scene, which prioritizes entrepreneurship, technical knowledge and wealth via
10 Therefore, a deeper investigation of these ‘problems’ and their ‘solutions’ is needed, as well as the incentives driving innovation.
Where does this constant drive for innovation comes from? To create new markets (Srnicek 6)? Because innovation becomes cheaper, as Morozov suggests? These economic incentives are being discussed in the next section. In general, according to McLuhan, new inventions are driven by a need to relieve “the stress of acceleration of pace and increase of load” (47) in private and work-related environments. But do not technologies also generate acceleration and, thereby, stress? That is where the problem lies according to McLuhan. New technologies create new needs, or ‘problems’ as Morozov would state, and psychic stress, which could be worse than remaining the status quo (McLuhan 73). According to Crary, this results in a never-ending process of unfulfilled gratifications (37). Context-wise, though, it does not necessarily mean that gratifications are experienced as unfilled. This is highly situational and demands insights in the technological implementation on both macro- and micro-level, and possible ambiguities of the processes. Hence, in this thesis, perspectives on technological solutionism, social constructivism and technological determinism, are explored.
Social constructivism mainly sees technologies as symptoms of changes in societies, whereas technological determinism mainly sees technologies as cause, resulting in social change and progress (Williams 291-293). In the former, society shapes technology and the social context is of utmost importance. In the latter, technology shapes society and the technological and economic context are of utmost importance. These oppositional stances are taken in an academic exchange between Judy Wajcman and Robert Hassan, concerning the acceleration of society7. Wajcman could be seen as a
social constructivist and Hassan as a technological determinist. Both underline a ‘speeding up’ of society, resulting in experiences of time pressure and time poverty (Wajcman 62 and Hassan 359). Wajcman suggests that the social context, in which people find ways to “appropriate, adapt and actively shape the use of digital technologies to take more control of time rather than being victims of uncontrollable instantaneous time,” should be investigated. According to her, this depends on
household organizations of work and non-work and gender division (66-7). In doing so, she states that the relationship between technology and time is one of mutual shaping and acceleration does not necessarily has to be bad, since technologies could offer freedom and choices as well. Contradictory to Hassan, whom criticizes Wajcman for evading the bigger picture in which powerful economic and technological processes shape and determine the social world and its temporal contexts (364). He states that Wajcman’s analysis of social effects, or ‘freedom’ and ‘choices’, misses a holistic view. Essentially, macro-level questions like “the question of control at the level of a neoliberal system that functions on a computer-driven autopilot its ideologues call the ‘free market’ (372), needs to be asked. According to Hassan, technology is designed and embedded in a certain culture, in which the main
7 It could be argued that their main discussion is about social theory and empirical studies, with the former
lagging behind compared to the latter. According to Wajcman, consequently, social theory becomes ‘science fiction’.
11 tendency is acceleration and less time (362). The next section will provide two main macro-economic transformation of interest for this thesis. One being neoliberal capitalism, Hassan addresses, and the other the declining welfare state.
2.2: The contemporary late-capitalist society
Capitalism is all about raising productivity levels and raising living standards (Srnicek 10), which constitute a rapid pace of growth. Because of its dependence on the market, production processes increasingly started to focus on efficiency in order to cut costs. According to Srnicek, the adoption of new technologies and currently the accumulation of data8, made production processes, competitor
relations and labor processes more efficient (11). Therefore, in order to constantly cut costs and increase profits, capitalism is dependent on constant technological change9. Capitalist states are
involved in “securing the conditions for the self-valorization of capital and those for reproducing labour power as fictitious commodity” (Jessop, 1996, 166). This results in transformations of the labor processes and the creation of new markets, with capitalism’s effects becoming increasingly visible in the contemporary society. To create an understanding of the contemporary late-capitalist society people in Western countries currently live in and set the macroeconomic context for this thesis, first, two main transformations are necessary to understand. The aim is not to provide an extensive historical account here, given the scale of this thesis such an approach would not be possible. Consequently, the aim is to understand these transformations as main impacts in constituting the society described in this thesis.
The first transformation could be understood as the contemporary society being one in which the Keynesian welfare state, associated with Fordism, has declined after WOII and increasingly has become a postwelfare society, associated with post-Fordism. According to Jessop, the Keynesian welfare state could economically be understood as securing full employment in a national economy (1996, 168). In this sense, “it tries to regulate collective bargaining within limits consistent with full employment levels of growth,” to generalize Fordist mass consumption so that all citizens may enjoy the fruits of growth (1996, 168). Fordism as macroeconomic system can be understood as a “balanced circle of mass production and mass consumption” (Jessop, 1996, 167) and is based on single earner family wages. These liberal social market regimes are concerned with national governmental
economic interventions and the provision of social securities. However, with a decline of productivity growth after WOII10, the balance between mass production and mass consumption tipped to
unprofitable extends.
8 Gradually gathered to increase profits.
9 According to Boltanski and Chiapello, capitalism is dependent on resources external to it to remain effective
(20).
12 Thus, social wage and security started to be seen as costs of production. Moreover, productivity growth in public services slowed down compared to the private sector and resulted in a crisis of Fordist labor market institutions.
This brings me to the second transformation. This transformation concerns capitalism becoming neoliberal capitalism in Western postwelfare states. The crisis of Fordism, needed to be resolved via a shift to post-Fordist production processes with shorter, more flexible product life cycles based on economies of scope11 and innovation. State intervention became fully market-driven
operating on a global scale. Basically, from government to governance and only state-intervention if the economy at large demands it, rather than social planning and full-employment. Neoliberal capitalism is concerned with “the liberalization and deregulation of economic transactions […] the privatization of state-owned enterprises and state-provided services […] and the treatment of public welfare spending as cost of international production” (Jessop, 2002, 454). Post-Fordism, therefore, promotes autonomy as value and practice, which results in enterprising working subjects (Foucault 226) and new forms of “reflexive self-organization” (Jessop, 2002, 460). In Western countries, a neoliberal ideology is thus generated by the market (Read 2). According to Read, anything can be seen as economical (5). This transforms labor and governs people as economic subjects. Now that the broader macroeconomic context is briefly established, the next section will provide an understanding of the subject in the contemporary late-capitalist society, in which performance and exhaustion are central.
2.3: A 24/7 society that decreases sleep and increases exhaustion
According to Jonathan Crary, a late-capitalist society is a 24/7 society in which mental and physical activities of human life start to resembles machine-like performances (10). He argues that capitalism has embodied a form of immediacy resulting in an overall loss of sleep on a micro-level. An overall loss of sleep sounds heavy, if not understood from a broader economic and technological context. In such a 24/7 society machines and technologies are always-on, could therefore run non-stop and above all blur boundaries between performance and non-performance. However, technologies do offer subjects the same immediacy, capitalism enjoys and enable them to actually keep-up. Seen from such a social constructivist perspective, these technologies offer choices and a sense of freedom. A false sense of freedom, according to Han (37), because human subjects become expected off to keep-up with 24/7-operating machines and technologies. Seen from a technological determinist perspective this limits the choices and freedom on a micro-level. In contrast, sleep could offer a form of resistance to the constant movement of the economic forces. This because not abiding to the movement of the forces, for now, digresses economic growth and profitability. As a result, in late-capitalism, ‘not moving’ is rejected as not (yet) profitable. Rather, constant movement in mental and physical activities
11 Producing a few main products at the same time to save costs that would be made if they are produced
13 is promoted as the new ‘normal’ and offers a form of prestige (Crary 20 and Franklin 112). Prestige is harder to resist, since from a “globalist neoliberal paradigm, sleeping is for losers” (Crary 16-17). Consequently, for human subjects, an acceleration of the pace of life and loss of sleep-time could constitute exhaustion and depleted resources (Crary 20). Unlike machines, human subjects need sleep to recharge the depleted resources. The expectance of human subjects to keep-up results in constant machine-like performance.
A society of constant performance is not a society ruled by disciplining governance anymore, but goes further and could better be understood as a society of achievement. According to Han, this society produces individualized achievement-subjects instead of collective obedience-subjects (14). In using ‘achievement’ Han goes out from the forces’ expectancy of delivering. This achievement-subject extends the entrepreneurial-subject of neoliberalism, because competition becomes self-competition. According to Han, ‘Yes we can’ is its slogan, but the ‘we’ mainly refers to an ‘I’. This is because the subject is wearing itself down and entirely incapable to rely on others (Han 77). Because the
technological and economic forces run non-stop, it becomes increasingly hard to keep up. According to Han, it only produces depressives and losers (14). The depressives can be understood as subjects no longer in control of themselves, completely drained after having enjoyed the ‘freedom’ to deliver. In producing these subjects, external domination becomes increasingly masked and internalized. More importantly, it does not mean compulsion does not happen anymore. Rather, freedom and compulsion coincide (Han 90).
The coinciding of freedom and compulsion in the contemporary late-capitalist society, becomes clear in the increasing number of people using performance enhancing drugs and
technologies in order to be able to keep-up (Crary 67). Vast new markets are created to offer human subjects the choice to take these drugs or adopt technologies and eliminate actions and behaviors that do not fit in the achievement society. On a micro-level, these drugs and technologies could relieve stress. However, it needs to be taken into account that the human subjects’ understanding of achievement, could become transformed into achievement as vital capacities stripped from their broader contexts (Han 54). Han therefore talks about a ‘doping society’ which articulates false neuro-enhancements that make it possible to achieve without achieving (53). Above all, these performance enhancers could be seen as symptom controls, created to eliminate unprofitable activities and enhance the subjects’ productivity levels. The subjects can become dependent on these performance enhancers, whilst exhaustion, produced by broader economic forces, still occurs. However, that is not to say the exhaustion is similarly ‘lived’ in a ‘doping society’. For, exhaustion is produced and highly dependent on its subjective context12.
12 According to Schaufeli, exhaustion is sometimes defined by a context-free psychological experience
expanding across different cultures (124). Such a flattening of the context leaves no room to critically analyze exhaustion as possible problem of the contemporary society.
14 Neckel et al. understand exhaustion as twofold: on the one hand as an individual’s physical and mental state and on the other hand as a broader socio-cultural phenomenon intensified in periods of rapid technological changes (5). In such an account a more technological determinist stance could be understood, whilst also addressing the micro-level of subjective experiences.When looking at the late-capitalist society, it could be argued that exhaustion has a politics of its own. Such a politics is used in contexts of private and work-related environments, political studies, literature studies and cognitive psychological- and behavioral studies (Greaney 253, Brunner et al. iii and Szymanski 83). What these perspectives have in common is that they refer to exhaustion as being empty or completely drained. For this thesis, as explained in the introduction, Greaney’s concept of the politics of
exhaustion is used, because the subjectivication of human agents, their lived experiences and the inequalities in exhaustion-production are central. This offers the opportunity to create new, currently unrepresented, assumptions, based on both micro-level social relations and the context of broader economic and technological forces at play. The complexity of the phenomenon of burnouts asks for such a holistic approach. Hence, the choice to use Greaney’s definition of the politics of exhaustion in this thesis.
Greaney’s perspective asks for a shift from “exhaustion as an impersonal object of scientific scrutiny to exhaustion as a subjective experience” (238). Also, Greaney speaks of extreme physical tiredness, and performative enacted exhaustion as embodying aesthetics (253). Which reminds me of Ngai’s concept of the aesthetic category called the ‘zany’13. The zany could be understood as an
aesthetic of activity and, according to Van Doorn, in the post-Fordist society, activity becomes the standard to value cultural- and work performances (370). It therefore does not only refer to work-related performance, rather, all of life’s activities as seen through the lens of this new aesthetic. This is important because these activities take place in an increasingly “performance-driven, information-saturated and networked, hypercommodified world of late capitalism” (Ngai 948), or, as Han generalizes, a society of tiredness and burnouts. However, burnout, depression, chronic fatigue and other mental and physical syndromes do appear to be the talk of the day in the late-capitalist society. The effects of these syndromes are highly individualistic, although there is a common denominator in being ‘exhausted’. What complicates the syndromes is that their symptoms overlap (Neckel et al. 1) and, concerning the burnout syndrome, can only be masked and not cured (Neckel et al. 6 and
Draulans n. pag.). Hence, a critical stance on symptom controls, merely fighting off symptoms instead of addressing the underlying socioeconomic and technological forces. Now that the broader
socioeconomic and technological forces in the late-capitalist society and an understanding of its subject are established, it is time to zoom in on the ‘world of work’ and its subjects.
13 The zany is the only aesthetic category with relation to affective or physical effort and its dynamics are best
15
2.4: The contemporary Hyper-Taylorist, agile world of work
In the contemporary late-capitalist society, non-stop growth and competition are generated by ever-heightened productivity and efficiency. With the management of individuals, whilst at the same time caring for their well-being, becoming increasingly challenging and costly (Moore 45), new forms of workplace organizations always need to be created (Russell 26). Measuring subject’s behavior in work-related environments, compatible to broader socio-economical systems, have become
increasingly important as this genealogy will argue. New technologies have always offered new means of quantification (Moore 36), to capture forms of labor and control workers. Even outside the factory walls, which over the course of the last one-hundred years have become increasingly ‘pervasive’. Quantification, in this context, can be understood as knowledge-through-numbers (Sharon 103) and is central in the more scientific method of managing subjects. The provided genealogy, thus, starts with the appearance of such a scientific method.
Thoughts on a more rational, control-oriented management method appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century and concretized as scientific management, or Taylorism (Dewinter et al. 126). Industrialist Frederick Taylor, at the time working for the Midvale Steel Company, sought a more efficient way to manage individuals and heighten productivity levels (Moore 47). Measurement and time became important factors in assessing the productivity of labor (Dewinter et al. 112 and Moore 47), which rested on the belief that numbers were more predictable and less costly to adjust
management to. Over the course of several years Taylor implemented technologies to measure two men and develop a science of management. For Taylor it was of the utmost importance that workers should not work under a pace which endangers their physical health (2). This constituted a shift in management’s focus from the mind towards the body. According to Taylor, both workmen and
management bear responsibilities to create efficiency, although, management does take it upon itself to develop a science for each element of a workman’s work. However, it needs to be taken into account that Taylor’s scientific management was based on repeatable, simple factory work (Moore 48 and Crary 81). In this context the heart of scientific management is a rationalization of production through standardization of the processes in the factory (Dewinter et al. 113), clearly defined tasks and a
separation of productive work time and unproductive play time (Moore 47). Moreover, factories’ labor processes became increasingly mechanized (Roldán 315-316 and Dewinter et al. 112). Mechanized because of the experiments’ implementation of new technologies like machines and measuring instruments (Moore 48). Above all, even though, intensifying human relations between management and the workers had positive effects, such a rational, control oriented method could have work intensifying and dehumanizing effects.
After several decades of scientific management, the work intensification and dehumanization took hold on trade unionists and managers alike, which articulated concerns on industrial alienation (Dewinter et al. 112 and Franklin 53). According to Berardi, this Marxist notion of alienation can be understood as the split between workers’ physical activity and their humanity (23). ‘Humanity’ sounds
16 like a loaded term in need of nuancing, especially since these managerial tactics were also concerned with better living standards. It could better be understood as a mind over body principle. According to Gregg, such a notion of alienation is being used as something that needs to be re-balanced (5), which, according to Moore, occurred in the form of a period of human relations, bringing sociology and psychology into work design (54). Closely linked to the Keynesian welfare state, Fordism as labour process could be seen as such an example. Mass production (Jessop, 1996, 167), “top-down
managerial control, and a ‘just in case’ approach that demanded extra workers and extra inventories in case of surges in demand” (Srnicek 14) were central. Only, for mass consumption, wages needed to rise similarly to meet market demands. National governmental welfare regulations of the economy, as explained in the second section, and strong unions to fall back on14, increased the welfare and
securities of white male factory workers. However, rising global competition and declining profitability demanded yet another workplace organization.
With increasing global competition after WOII, profitability declined and mass production started to look more like overproduction. In this post-Fordist era, mass production is transformed to segment old markets and open up new ones and decrease national demand conditions (Jessop, 1996, 171). Manufacturing processes became modelled after the competition: no longer mass production, but customizable goods in a Japanese Toyotist fashion. This meant production process needed to become more streamlined, broken down to its smallest components in order to eliminate inconsistencies and downtime (Srnicek 17). Hence, a re-Taylorization towards the contemporary hyper-Taylorist society occurred, fed by cybernetic management (Franklin 105) or systems rationalism (Moore 55)15. In order
to increase profitability rates, by means of higher productivity and worker control, management became a process of “objective setting, planning and forecasting, driven by targets and calculations” (Moore 55), or, “predictability-through-limitation” (Franklin 72). Because of accelerated innovation, human agency became aligned with mechanization, resembling computational input-output systems (Moore 56), which, according to Draulans, the human brain is not capable of doing (n. pag.). The ‘objective’ planning is all about rationalism, targets and calculations and, therefore, undermines the worker’s subjectivities16. Even though, the controlling of the production process and production
environment were most applicable to the factory (Moore 48 and Crary 81), with the expansion of the factory to the whole of society as ‘social factory’17, scientific management and its capitalist logic took
hold on the society and life in general.
14 This thesis will not elaborate on trade union narratives, which demand a research of its own. See Feher,
Russell, Ramirez et al., Srnicek and Juravich for narratives on trade union opposition and employee empowerment.
15 Two thought-systems occurring at the same time with several commonalities in the control of workers by
means of predictability. The term cybernetic management will not further be used (see Franklin 110).
16 Meanwhile in Italy, such concerns about the ignorance of the worker’s ‘raw’ subjectivity translated into Italian
autonomist Operaismo, or the workerist movement of the 60s (Keucheyan 81).
17 See further autonomist Marxist writings: Smith 16, Keucheyan 85, Van Doorn 356, Caffentzis 96-99 and Gill
17 With the decline of the welfare state, as explained in the second section, and the rise of
outsourcing jobs18 and rise of neoliberalism at the beginning of the 80s, post-Fordist production
processes started to rely more on autonomy and individuality (Smith 11, Crary 85 and Han 29). Because of the dismantling of social security and protection, especially in education, social services and healthcare, a worker’s benefits became increasingly costly, whilst workers had to be available for more hours a week, to avoid hiring additional workers and paying their benefits (Juravich 43).
However, with an increasing importance of a worker’s knowledge as production factor19, opportunities
appeared as well as challenges. For, how to measure the intangibility of knowledge? To monetize and quantify the previously un-economical, neoliberalism brought to life a Theory of Human Capital (Foucault 219). Human capital could be understood as “the unique combination of psychic, cognitive and affective powers I bring to the labor process” (Smith 13-14)20, and articulates a clear
transformation of management’s responsibilities towards responsibilities of the self (Russell 28 and Moore 52).
As enterprises of the self (Moore 57, Gregg 11, Crary 85 and Foucault 225), workers became individually responsible for the meaning of their work and economic worth for the company21, which
Gregg refers to as ‘deep acting’ (Gregg 9-10). The demand for continuous self-improvement, under intensified workloads, created a rise in popularity of technology-informed workshops such as ‘coping with stress’, ‘dealing with change’ and ‘time management’. These workshops enable a better work-life balance for workers by offering them freedom and choices to take control of time (Wajcman 66-67). However, according to Gregg, under a neoliberal ideology these workshops disguise an implication that ‘not-coping’ and ‘not-keeping-up’ are at personal fault (Gregg 5), which could better be
understood as disciplinary techniques to control workers (Gregg 13). Above all, in late-capitalism the role of entrepreneur escalates (Moore 59).
18 In order to cut costs, factories became increasingly outsourced. Because of cost savings the link between rising
productivity and rising wages started to break and became increasingly market-focussed instead of full
employment-focused (Juravich 2). These effects are still apparent in the contemporary late-capitalist society, as
The Dutch Bureau for Statistics (CBS), highlights (CBS n. pag.). Although, it needs to be taken into account the
CBS-research was conducted in 2015, more recent sources speak of a similar situation. Moreover, the gap between Dutch productivity levels and wage rate seems to expand, worsening its effects (Witteman n. pag. and CM n. pag.).
19 With capitalism entering its cognitive state, or intangible knowledge as main production factor, work became
transformed and value, increasingly extracted from communicative, emotional and other social capacities of the workers (Gill and Pratt 8).
20 For further explanations of human capital, see: Szymanski 91, Foucault 225, Van Doorn 355, Moore and
Robinson 4. From a different perspective, offered by Berardi, human capital could be understood as putting the soul to work, which constitutes a new form of alienation (see Berardi 23). This because every mental and social fragment is transformed into capital.
21 The dot-com boom of the late 90s gave rise to a digital entrepreneurial culture of work (Marwick 111, Neff et
al. 331 and Gill 7-17), in which risk is glamorized, self-responsibility and pressures of flexibility rise and the management of the self occurs under increasing uncertainty.
18 In the contemporary late-capitalist society, work becomes a performance in need of constant adjustments. This creates an atmosphere of immediacy with workers ‘always-on’ (Gregg 15) and change in work environments understood as ‘normal’ (Ngai 368). Current management theories prioritize ‘performance’, indicated by rationalizations of productivity and efficiency, over everything else (Moore 43). Over the course of the last century, management has incorporated these tenets of Taylorism to promote a win-win situation: jobs becoming more interesting and challenging and productivity, quality and profits increasing (Ramirez et al. 497). This results in an understanding of the contemporary late-capitalist society as one of hyper-Taylorism (Roldán 318, Russell 28, Ramirez et al. 498, Juravich 6 and Franklin 42). In a hyper-Taylorist society all time is transformed to productive time and labor is masked, which, according to Moore, works in capitalism’s best interest to “gain as much possible from the work performed” (37) 22. Such a system of hyper-Taylorism pushes workers as
hard as it can, normalizes mandatory overtime and stress, uses standardization to eliminate
institutional flexibility (Ramirez et al. 498, Roldán 318, Moore 37 and Russell 28), whilst demanding flexibility from the workers (Juravich 6 and Han 74), and undermining the workers’ qualitative experience of working life (Juravich 45).
Moore calls the contemporary phase which people now live- and work in agile management systems (58), which is a form of “total quality management and high-performance work system” (Moore 63). The only choice workers have is to be agile, or flexible and adaptable, to an ever changing world of work. Basically, due to the rapid changes in technologies and management, workers never know what they are up for, which could increase stress. Also, the increasing acceleration and implementation of technologies demand additional amounts of work for both user and implementer (Gregg 2 and Lupton, 2017, 7) and, moreover, transforms management into technological management (Moore 59)23. These technologies do however offer workers a certain flexibility, to work where they
want, when they want (Gregg 1 and Crary 119). With this workers can better manage time to avoid feelings of time pressure and constitute times of their choice (Wajcman 71). But how ‘free’ are these choices really (Hassan 373)? If they are ‘free’ would not it be able to say ‘no’, or not-move (Crary 20 and Franklin 112)? In our contemporary late-capitalist society ‘no’ does not seem to be the new normal, because it stalls movement. Not being able to set a ‘no’ in opposition constitutes reacting immediately to every impulse which is a symptom of exhaustion (Han 37). It does not give time to think and reflect24. Moreover, with these devices becoming increasingly wearable and 24/7-ready
22 Again, it needs to be taken into account that Taylorism was based on a factory’s logic and hyper-Taylorism
similarly becomes most clear in the context of simple, repeatable factory work. For instance, amazon warehouse and platforms, such as TaskRabbit and Uber, as employers (See Srnicek). However, with the logic of the factory expanding to the society as a whole, hyper-Taylorism has become apparent in the society as a whole and extends to white-collar jobs as well.
23 According to Gregg, “The worst of this behavior involves manic email monitoring, online presence
performance, and the tyranny of the mobile phone among senior executives and junior on-call workers alike” (18).
24 That is why the contemporary society should create social zones of human resistance again (Berardi 220).
19 (Hassan 373 and Crary 101), “Work, identity and life blur together and it is increasingly difficult to log out, switch off” (Moore 57). This is what Gregg calls the “presence bleed of contemporary office culture” (2), in which new media technologies make the relation between work and private more intimate. Such a relation, creates workers that “have internalized the imperative to perform, a subjectification process as we become observing, entrepreneurial subjects and observed, objectified laboring bodies” (Moore 3). An inner manager, exploiting an inner worker so to speak.
Agile management systems accommodate and encourage self-and other-tracking, because they occur simultaneously to intensified workloads, the need to preliminary identify workers’ collapses and a move towards self-management via the idealized, quantified precision of algorithms25 (Moore 59 and
110). Purely looked at it from an employee perspective such idealized precision does not necessarily have to be bad if used to increase workers’ wellbeing. However, the data that is created offers capitalism with new markets and economic growth (Srnicek 6). This means that there is a clear economic incentive. The data that is being generated by these devices could inform decision-making processes for lay-off choices and always asks for ethical and privacy concerned questions (Moore 163-164). With a rise in popularity in work- and private related settings, these devices are not merely used in factory settings, but are increasingly used in a wide range of office cultures. Usually closely linked to employee wellness initiatives (Moore 165), such devices are promoted to offer cheaper, better and more efficient employee wellbeing and healthcare (Sharon 94). A clear technological solutionist perspective is apparent. Hence, numerous experiments are being undertaken in both private- and work-related environments to explore the possibilities and challenges26. Now that the ‘world of work’ is
established, the next section will focus on the management of the self via tracking of health and activity and reveal the “tensions in incorporating all-of-life measure” (Moore 176) in both work and private environments.
In specific, it should become ‘normal’ again to have small talk with colleagues or take time off to care for family members.
25 Algorithms are the sets of rules with which, for instance computers, perform certain actions. “Through
algorithms, commonalities between data can be parsed and patterns within data then identified and labelled” (Cheney-Lippold 167).
26 An example of the latter could be found in the Dutch 2015 experiment of the Quantified Workplace, Moore
describes in her book. By means of voluntary use of wearable and other self-tracking devices by employees, management of the Dutch company hoped to gather insights in order to compare “subjectively and objectively measured productivity, as linked to health and activity tracking” with the aim to make the workplace more agile (Moore 166-167). First impressions of employees and management alike were positive and the Quantified-Self’ers felt stimulated to improve their productivity. However, “the majority resisted the QWP both with passive, verbal conjectures, and by explicit exit from the project, revealing tensions in incorporating all-of-life measures in the labour process” (Moore 176). According to Moore, the displacement of management’s accountability for workers’ well-being is apparent.
20
2.5: Self-tracking activity and health
As this section will show, the increase in responsibility for the self and rise in tracking via wearable devices result in opportunities27 and concerns. The sheer amount of health-related apps and wearable
devices for self-tracking, suggests a booming market. Most wearable devices are used for self-tracking activities, like sports, but also health (Lupton, 2017, 1). According to Sharon, this has to do with the hope that increased health responsibilization transforms consumers into active citizens enacting more sustainable and healthier habits and decreasing healthcare spending, via better managing chronic diseases (95-96). This links it closely to the decline of the welfare state and rise of neoliberal governance. Instead of models that have to fit in all, personalized healthcare has a higher cost-efficiency. Taken that individuals provide the data to constitute such models. These devices speak to avid self-trackers, whom happily adopted the entrepreneurial subject (Lupton, 2013, 398). This could be problematic, because the monitoring and disciplining of people’s health is not concerned with merely patients anymore. Rather, the aim is prevention for all its subjects. According to Lupton, the use of m-Health, or mobile health, has a lot to do with identifying risk factors and at-risk groups in order to target these (2012, 234). This constitutes an intensification of the control of subjects. Take for instance work wellness programs, wherein, according to Sharon, lower premiums for participation and sustainable behavior are provided (99), but actually control the workers by limiting their freedom. Also, private and public become blurred to a formerly unthought-of extent. The devices can collect biometric data anytime, anywhere, become increasingly pervasive in private and work-related environments and, because of this pervasiveness, increasingly extend environments to the body, and vice versa (Lupton, 2017, 3). Marketed as friendly to gain the trust of its users (Walker Rettberg 37-39), the devices promise unprecedented possibilities. Consequently, what was formerly understood as private, is being quantified28. However, these metrics do not always fit self-perceptions (Lupton, 2017,
8). This could constitute feelings of shame, disappointment and even stress.
The focus on quantifying certain bodily capacities (heart rhythms, sleep rhythms etc.), sidelines other bodily capacities similarly to symptom controls. Health, thereby, is detached from its qualitative social and cultural dimensions (Shannon 101 and Lupton, 2017, 5). Consequently,
quantified Self’ers are sometimes seen as obsessive or narcissistic. According to Crary, this has to do with the potent addictive properties of-, possibilities of flattened responses towards- and the
uncertainty of heightened senses of well-being or gratification via-, these devices (105). Also, concerns on autonomy and authenticity as promised values become apparent. These promised values
27 Enthusiasm for an increasing importance of quantification can be found in the Quantified Self community, or
Quantified Self’ers. This community exists out of avid self-trackers, taking the responsibility to gain insights in their health and activity.
28 It needs to be taken into account that: “self-tracking experiments typically focus on aspects of individuals’
lives that are disturbing, painful, or embarrassing: struggles with weight loss, mental health and disease, bad habits, or undesirable character traits—sensitive issues that are not easily revealed in most contexts and that are given a voice via the abstract language of numbers” (Shannon 112).
21 could be understood as a decreased dependence on medical professionals or family care-givers, an increase of taking control to manage diseases and a more precise knowledge of the “true” selves. However, according to Shannon, self-tracking in such a context results in an increase in algorithmic intervention and a distancing of the self instead (105). Moreover, the produced data is never ‘raw’. It is collected, compiled, processed and interpreted by algorithms which are produced as well (Gitelman and Jackson 3). Therefore, the numbers could never be entirely neutral. Rather, they reproduce normative stereotypes already inherent in the systems (Shannon 105 and Cheney-Lippold 169).
According to Shannon, the pursuit of self-awareness and self-knowledge by numbers as lacking a qualitative dimension, is not a thought shared by Quantified Self’ers in their everyday lives (103). According to her, the values are actually being enacted in different contexts and a re-orientation of these values as practices, needs to take place to be able to reframe the debate on self-tracking for health (94). Lived experiences are needed to fill the gap between wearable technology implementation so to speak. Quantified Self’ers aim at unveiling unique aspects of themselves by use of wearable technology. They do so by forms of soft-resistance to the system and strong forms of autonomy, which, according to Shannon, is different from the “guided type of empowerment that public health agencies and medical professionals have in mind when promoting digital health” (109)29. According to
Shannon, self-trackers see the data as supplement, or additional layer in constituting a knowledge about the self (114). It therefore could be seen as aesthetic action, closely linked to the zany as aesthetic category of performance, because it is an enacted construct. The numbers by themselves do not offer the Quantified Self’er its “true” identity, of which s/he is aware. In her article, Shannon offers questions, insights and pitfalls that need to be taken into account when researching self-tracking for health. The only thing is that her ‘reframing’ of the debate is based on avid Quantified Self’ers, whom are early adopters of quantification and tracking and embody the entrepreneurial subjective position. Shannon leaves out people resisting wearable technologies, late-adopters and people whom have quit using these technologies for differing reasons. Therefore, she does not effectively fill the gap. Also, these devices are not inanimate objects like diaries (Walker Rettberg 28). They speak back and constitute context and actions. Hence, research of the implementation should go beyond a focus on Quantified Self’ers alone, because it is only a piece of the puzzle. Before answering to these needs in Chapter 4, the complexity of burnouts needs to be established first. As the last section will
highlight: a highly complex mental- and physical disorder that needs to be prevented, but is not merely caused by ‘over-performing’ in work.
29 Self-tracking in this context could even be compared to confiding to a diary, because they act as audiences,
22
2.6: Burnouts
This last section concerns the highly complex mental- and physical dimensions of burnouts. When looking at the burnout syndrome in specific, it is usually referred to as a battery that is drained, which, needs to be recharged with treatment, in order to create a more sustainable energy balance (Neckel et al. 12). Common symptoms are “weariness, disillusionment, apathy, hopelessness, and lack of motivation” (Neckel et al. 5). Exact causes are hard to pinpoint because of occurrence and co-occurrence of social, economic, psychological, physical and/or work-related factors. For instance, in sectors where hard physical labor is required, competition and low-wages could create burnouts. Also, occupations in which workers have to work with risk groups or vulnerable populations, the chances of befalling burnout are higher. An overall increase in white-collar jobs in which workers befall burnout, instead of hard physical, factory jobs, is becoming increasingly apparent (NOS n. pag.). Moreover, Neckel et al. recognize a shift from social professions as risks, towards risks of self-fulfilment and unrealistic values imposed by the individual or society (13). According to Han, the “burnout syndrome does not express the exhausted self so much as the exhausted, burnt-out soul” (Han 17), which
encompasses all of life’s actions in late-capitalism (Berardi 21). This means that the phenomenon of burnouts is not merely work-related and, therefore, should be understood as extended to the society as a whole similarly to the social factory. Even though, an increase in individualization and the rise of the ‘me culture’ are surfacing in European contexts (Schaufeli 119), in modern Western societies burnouts are still equivalent to mere occupational burnouts (Schaufeli 120)30. This links burnouts, more than
depression, to work itself and the changes inherent to it. When looking at the Netherlands, according to Schaufeli, its social security system offers financial compensations, provided that a diagnosis by a medical professional is made (122). Because in diagnosing the condition lies the problem, new tools need to be created to identify burnouts, and hopefully identify at-risk groups, in order to improve prevention methods. Increasingly, these tools concern technologies. Therefore, above all, a clear link to rapid social and technological changes is apparent (Neckel et al. 13).
Interestingly, clinical research on burnouts and work stress increasingly focus on
technological changes (Bliese et al. 390), their possibilities and implications (Salanova and Schaufeli 389, Wright et al. 511, Xie et al. 95 and Eldor et al. 227) and technologies as tools to prevent and monitor burnouts (Heeter et al. 314)31. Technological solutionism, social constructivism and
technological determinism are all apparent in these debates. Bliese et al, for instance, provide a history
30 Where the syndrome exactly originates remains debatable, but there is a rise in Western countries
recognisable. In Germany for instance: “a mood of discontent with the pressure to perform in contemporary working life, with the increasing pace of work and communication, with excessive everyday demands and newly perceived forms of alienation, is being articulated with the help of the burnout syndrome” (Neckel et al. 10-11). Here, a clear link between work and burnouts is visible.
31 Some clinical research does seem to focus more on risk occupations and at-risk groups, such as care workers
or educational workers (Heeter et al. 314 and Xie et al. 94). However, Wright et al, Eldor et al. and Bliese et al. extend this scope. Bliese et al. even recognize a decline of producing jobs and an increase of white-collar service jobs in which workers experience stress.
23 of stress research, in which macro societal trends, created by major political, economic, technological, and societal changes, are highlighted (390). According to them, technology changes how people live and work, and influences all areas of the economy and society.32. Future trends Bliese et al. propose,
are: “(a) integration of physiological data; (b) ability to test work-life cycle models; and (c) stress management trials” (398). Since, the importance of prevention, one could ask why this future trend explicitly misses, although, quantified healthcare is apparent in (a). Such an example could be found in the research of Heeter et al, whom examine a meditation self-help application as stress reliever and self-regulating cultivator for healthcare providers. They do so by testing a 6-week technology-assisted meditation program (314). According to them the smartphone apps and bi-weekly emails helped and even motivated healthcare providers to listen to their body more via meditation (314). What makes this meditation program interesting is that it was tailored to take as less time as possible. To fit a working life so to speak (Crary 101). In their research, however, they did not focus on the willingness to adopt the technologies needed, which, just like in Sharon’s account, provides a one-sided understanding of self-tracking for health. Also, they do not take into account the extra amount of labor these
technologies demand (Gregg 2) and broader questions on the freedom of choice to adopt the necessity of these technologies are unmet.
Salanova and Schaufeli do look at the adoption of new technologies and offer means to critically asses technological solutionist articulations of technologies. They test the hypothesis if the “impact of the exposure to technology on burnout is mediated by the appraisal of technology.” They underline that burnouts include an affective response, for instance, cynical and sceptical attitudes towards work. According to them, a “more intensive exposure to technology is associated with a more positive appraisal, which, in its turn is associated with lower levels of burnout” (389). Only, the focus in their research is on work-related technology usage and does not asses the implications of these technologies for perceived work-life conflicts. Wright et al. do focus on these perceptions in their study. According to them, increased work life conflicts, because of the blurring of work-life balance, result in an increase in stress and burnouts. It does however greatly depend on the expectations of management and employers concerning technology usage of employees. According to Wright et al. management is there to establish roles, but also need to establish boundaries in order to decrease stress (511) and confine the role of the entrepreneur again. Additionally, Wright et al. state that the work-life conflict works both ways, with life also influencing work negatively. Communication technologies make it harder to leave private problems ‘at home’, although, according to Xie et al, some employees prefer a higher work-life integration and communication technologies provide them control over work schedule and location (94). However, this also depends on the individual worker’s broader
32 Also, the participation of women on the job market and globalization of the job market had major effects
(Bliese et al. 391), with the former demanding a research of its own. Such a research should not merely concern micro-level social contexts, such as household organizations of work and non-work and gender divisions (Wajcman 66-67), but also look at economic and technological processes shaping these social contexts (Hassan 364).
24 socioeconomic context. Often, technologies flatten contexts if not researched holistically. Take for instance, Hassan and Wajcman’s exchange on the acceleration of the pace of life and compression of time. According to Eldor et al, a focus on the subjectivity of time is needed to examine exhaustion and stress in their broader contexts (227). As discussed before, micro-level subjective experiences offer means to research these contexts, provided that these perspectives are combined, rather, than opposed. With technologies being Pharmakons, loaded with ambiguity, burnout prevention is just not that simple as creating a self-help application, via self-tracking of activity and health, as the sole solution. Before this theoretical framework and its lenses will be ‘put-to-work’ in Chapter 4, by means of lived experiences in broader socioeconomic and technological contexts, first, in the next chapter, the methods used and the research design of this thesis need to be addressed.
