Do Cell Phones Make Family Life Easier? Maybe Not, Says UWM Sociologist

Noelle Chesley

MILWAUKEE — Are the electronic gadgets designed to make us accessible anytime, anywhere making the lives of dual-income families easier? Maybe not. A study by a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) indicates that use of cell phones and pagers by one large sample of married or partnered couples is adding stress to family life – especially for women.

The study finds a link between use of cell phones and pagers and increased psychological distress and lower family satisfaction among the sample, says Noelle Chesley, an assistant professor of sociology, because it allows yet another way to bring job worries home after work.

Women in the study were doubly affected because they indicated that the greater access also allowed home concerns to spill over into the work day, something the men did not experience.

"What we found was that it was a negative experience for both men and women, but women had the added problem of home life invading work," Chesley says. For women, the consequences of cell phone access may be increased calls from children or elderly family members, calls that are usually placed because a problem has arisen at home.

The survey sample included 1,367 people who were employed at one of seven organizations in upstate New York. To be eligible for the study, respondents had to be married or partnered with someone who also worked outside the home.

"We wanted to get a sense of the trends or patterns for a larger group," she says, "but it was by no means a national or random sample. You can, however, get a sense of – ‘is this more of a blessing or more of a curse?' – among a large group of workers."

Use of computers and the Internet, including email, were included in the study, but those technologies did not promote either positive or negative changes in the people studied, says Chesley, who came to UWM this fall from Cornell University.

She says she can think of two possible explanations. First, cell phones and pagers are too convenient.

"A cell phone you'd use as an easy way to gain quick access. With the computer, we make more of a decision to go to it, turn it on, and check email and the Internet – and you can choose not to bother with it. There's more control there."

Also, cell phones and pagers are a newer phenomenon than computers. "Adoption of computer use has existed for a longer time, and perhaps people have had time to figure out how to control it," she says.

The results indicate that employers can play a role in regulating the negative impact their workers are experiencing by placing limits on how connected employees are expected to be beyond the business day, she adds.

Chesley is a former fellow of the Cornell Employment and Family Careers Institute, a research center funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Her research focuses on the processes that link work and family roles and the outcomes associated with the intersections of those roles. She is currently involved in studies of family care of the elderly and the experiences of older workers and their employers.

Her study, "Blurring Boundaries? Linking Technology Use, Spillover, Individual Distress, and Family Satisfaction," is appearing in the December issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

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