Hard day at work? It's perfectly fine to park yourself in front of the TV. It might even make recovery - an essential part of burnout prevention - easier.
Workplace stress can take a major toll on a person's health and research has shown that recovery is key to preventing burnout, depression and other negative health effects. But what happens when employees go home to chaotic environments - households where children are fighting, chores need doing and meals need cooking - making it nearly impossible to recover from the day?
"Household size is really about how many demands a person experiences when they go home. We tend to think that home might be a place of rest, but when you have more people - at least when you look at it in terms of number of children - it could create more demands for someone and so it's not necessarily a place for recovery," says Soo Min Toh, a professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
In her latest research, published in the Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology , she found that adult screen time might be the (not so secret) remedy.
Across a series of studies, Toh and her co-author, Xian Zhao of Ohio University, found that watching television, scrolling on smartphones and playing video games after work may "buffer" the effects of stress in chaotic households, helping people feel more relaxed at home and, in turn, aid in their recovery from the day's stressors.
Toh and Zhao first used data from the American Time Use Survey , which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and widely used by psychologists, economists and other social scientists. They examined how much time more than 61,000 American married adults spent watching TV, how many kids they had and the extent to which they felt tired and stressed.
Predictably, they found that households with kids reported feeling more fatigued and stressed. Yet, in a twist, even among those with kids at home, people who spent more time watching TV said they experienced less stress and tiredness.
The researchers also surveyed more than 100 Canadian post-secondary students about their levels of home chaos (rating statements such as "I can't hear myself think at home"). Students then filled out nightly surveys on smartphone use and daily moods. Those who reported higher levels of home chaos also reported more negative moods - but when they spent more time on their phones, those negative moods were less intense.
A final study looked at nightly video game use and participants' ability to focus on work the following day.
More than 100 Canadian post-secondary students were recruited and initially asked how many housemates they lived with. Over the following week, the students reported their time spent playing video games and their levels of reattachment to work the next morning. While people with more housemates had a harder time getting back into a work mindset the next day, those who played video games reported less difficulty reconnecting to work.
"There is a buffering effect of screen time to household demands, strain and chaos, number of people and responsibilities," says Toh. "When people use digital devices, it can provide a space or a break, or even a relief or detachment, from both the demands at home and at work."
Toh notes that the study didn't take digital device addiction into account, which could potentially have negative effects on recovery.
"We're not suggesting you should spend more time on your phone," Toh says. "There's that caution that if you do spend too much time on these devices, you might have more fatigue and you won't experience those recovery benefits."
Despite the risks of overuse, Toh believes the findings offer an important reminder: people shouldn't be so hard on themselves when it comes to their digital device use.
"Screen time can actually be helpful to recovery," she says. "It allows you to take a breather and be in this space where you get a break from all your responsibilities and that can be quite restorative for recovering our resources.
"We are really hard on ourselves and what we do in our free time. I think the message of this paper is, don't stress about it."
This article originally appeared on the Rotman Insights Hub
