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Such conclusions are indicated by a new study published in the journal Science. Its authors concluded that the spread of remote work may be associated with a deterioration in the psychological state of employees and an increase in social isolation.
The topic is particularly relevant against the backdrop of large-scale changes in recent years. In the US, the share of working days spent at home has grown from 7% in 2019 to 28% in 2023, turning the remote format into one of the biggest social experiments of our time.
A team of economists led by Natalia Emanuel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York analyzed data from more than 500,000 Americans between 2011 and 2024. The researchers compared representatives of professions that allow telecommuting with employees whose presence at the workplace is mandatory.
The results showed a strong link between the ability to work remotely and higher levels of psychological stress. At the same time, the feeling of social isolation increased. The proportion of employees who sought help from mental health professionals increased from 7.9% to 12.5%. This effect was most pronounced among people living alone. Their stress scores shifted from “sometimes” to a state that survey respondents described as persisting most of the time.
The study authors suggest that one reason is the reduction in daily social contacts. Casual conversations in corridors, joint lunches and other forms of informal communication that have long been an integral part of office life are disappearing.
However, the results themselves do not mean that remote work is unambiguously harmful. Economist Nicholas Bloom notes that working from home saves people from daily travel and gives them extra time for family, rest and sleep. Researchers estimate that employees save more than an hour a day by not traveling to the office.
In addition, critics point to an important limitation of the study: its authors did not separate fully remote and hybrid work formats. Meanwhile, it is the hybrid model that is now becoming the standard for many companies and is often seen as a compromise between flexibility and live communication.
The debate about the future of offices has been going on for several years. The new study does not put an end to this debate, but it does remind us that the impact of telecommuting is not only measured in terms of productivity and time savings. Increasingly, the question of how the psychological state of millions of people who have made home their permanent workplace is changing is coming under the spotlight.
