Twenty years ago, it was predicted that advanced technologies and computers would ease our workload, complete menial tasks for us, and generally make life a lot easier for the human race. Some even feared that computers would replace people in companies and massive robotic corporations would prosper while a large percentage of people sat around unemployed.
For the Republic, however, technology has done just the opposite. It has created huge numbers of jobs along with vast wealth and a booming economy. But the promised stress-free life, in which the bulk of the workload would be handled by computers rather than the employees, does not seem to have materialised.
Mr Maurice Quinlan of the EAP Institute pointed to the possibility that "TRA", or technology-related rage, may soon replace stress as the buzzword of the workplace. A survey commissioned by Compaq in the UK showed that 75 per cent of workers who suffer daily problems with their PCs had witnessed their colleagues swearing at their monitors with frustration.
Rage against the PC does not end there though. Twenty-five per cent of those under 25 years old said they had seen their peers kicking their computers and a similar number had considered deliberately damaging their PCs by pulling the plug out. Part of this frustration may be rooted in a perceived lack of light at the end of the tunnel, with 75 per cent of people saying they believed their IT manager could not sort out the problems.
Among the problems mentioned by Mr Quinlan were information overload in the form of hundreds of emails and the intrusion on personal time now that employees are contactable outside office hours.
In a Reuters survey, 61 per cent of managers reported that social activities had had to be cancelled because of the need to deal with excessive information. For the same reason, 49 per cent of all managers either often or very frequently worked late or took work home. A further 62 per cent said their personal relationships had suffered as a result of these circumstances.
Since the early 1990s, companies have invested large amounts of money in new technology. This has led to an expectation of higher productivity and, consequently, greater stress for workers, according to the national secretary of the Manufacturing Science Finance (MSF) trade union, Mr Terry Shanahan. Mr Shanahan compared new technology to an expensive aircraft, in that it is not making money when it is sitting on the ground. Within the workplace, the interaction between managers and their subordinates is increasingly through email or messaging systems, resulting in less social interaction. While multi-tasking was one of the jargon words of the 1990s, Mr Shanahan said the term was designed to facilitate new technology rather than the employees who operated it.
Looking at things from a different perspective, the employers' organisation IBEC does not see stress as a bad thing. IBEC's Mr Tony Briscoe said that stress was not an injurious state and that often the most stressful periods in life were related to personal events, such as bereavement, rather than work changes. He believes that commuting, which can add up to 30 per cent to a person's working week, is a much greater contributory factor to stress than workplace technology. Mr Briscoe said that stress was often a perception, and that if people could change their perception of a situation, it could be alleviated.
Mr Shanahan said it would be hard to find many employees who felt that technology had made their working lives easier or improved their social lives. Internet browsing could be used as a substitute for social interaction, and communication was often characterised by short messages which contained little thought.
PROF James Wickham, of the sociology department at University College Dublin, believes that the role of technology in society is a double-edged sword. "As we move to a more fragmented and individualised society, technology facilitates the process of fragmentation of people's lives but also plays a role in connecting the different parts," he said.
For example, before the widespread use of wireless communications, families would use one single family phone, which resulted in constant interaction between family members over its use. Now, in many families, each member has a mobile phone, resulting in more independent but more separate lives.
However, the fact that family members have mobile phones means they can contact each other at any time, no matter where they are, which facilitates greater connectedness. Prof Wickham believes that the technological changes being wrought on society at the moment cannot be compared to the Industrial Revolution. He said one difference now is that we have better marketing, which tells us we are going through times of dramatic change and need to have the new technologies that are being peddled.
He said the changes occurring during the Industrial Revolution were much greater and more traumatic. "You have to run as fast as you can to stay where you are," wrote Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865.
As things stand, the fairytale may well prove to be prophetic for many workers in an era of technological change that requires them to work longer hours than ever. If technological advances are more efficient, it begs the question: "Why are we spending more time working?"
However, new research conducted by the sociology department at UCD showed that the number of hours in an average working week in the Republic is actually declining. Prof Wickham said the research, based on the national quarterly household, showed the view that Irish people are working longer hours was actually a myth.
He said a growing number of people are working a strict 40hour week or less, while an increasing number are also working a variable number of hours with a more fragmented schedule.
A survey by the Kensington Group in the US showed that although 55 per cent of workers thought they were more productive with technology, they also believed technology increased stress levels. It showed that employees believe there is a direct correlation between workplace stress and accidents, mistakes and illness.
Seventy per cent considered stress to be the leading cause of mistakes, while 76 per cent thought the most stressed workers had higher absenteeism. Meanwhile, Congress in the US has begun to investigate the dangerous effects of in-car multitasking, in which mobile phones, voicemail and emails all compete with driving for attention. Perhaps it is time to examine whether certain technologies are improving our lives or not, and look at how we can use new devices in a more balanced way.