How work from home culture could be fuelling depression

Back from holiday to the blue skies of London, I am not surprised at all by how empty the roads and trains feel during rush hour. Who wouldn’t choose to work from a sunny garden over a drab office, after a start to the summer so dreary that this month has been nicknamed Juneuary.

Yet some would rather loll around in the sun without work weighing on their minds at all. As temperatures rise, online searches are up for so-called “mouse jigglers” which mimic the movement of a cursor so that bosses don’t realise their home working staff are offline.

Working from home – or from bed – could be actively harming workers’ mental health.Credit: Stock

There are already thousands of happy Amazon customers using these gadgets, described as “an absolutely essential item for working from home,” by one recent buyer. “Does exactly what every dishonest homeworker needs it to,” adds another.

But buyer be warned – this hardware doesn’t fool everyone. American banking giant Wells Fargo just sacked members of its wealth and investment management arm for simulating “keyboard activity” after investigating claims that they were pretending to be busy.

The Wells Fargo saga may have spooked a few master mouse jiggler users, but it’s unlikely many people outside the finance industry will get caught out, let alone sacked.

Carl Howell, a UK-based mouse jiggling salesman, tells me his mouse movers are “undetectable” and that people want them because they can get their work done in just half a day but need their bosses to think it’s taken them longer. Always jiggle responsibly, is his motto.

Trying to do a minimal amount of work, staying at home all week and putting up with an ill-suited job will turn out to be a mistake for many.

The issue here is less about getting caught and more about toxic presenteeism and unhappy staff fooling themselves into thinking that they’ve got the upper hand. Where once someone unhappy at work would have been motivated to find a new one, now those who hate their jobs are admitting defeat and instead doing as little as possible from the comfort of their home.

That might feel like a win initially, but it’s a slippery slope. Like those on huge salaries who feel trapped in jobs they hate because of the money (the ‘golden handcuffs’ phenomenon), it can be hard to break free from a job that never expects you to get out of bed, and even harder for those who have found a way to make it look like they’re working when they’re not.

Those given the go-ahead by their employer to never leave the house are likely to quickly lose any lofty ambitions they once had as they settle in to a much more comfortable routine.

There’s nothing wrong with that scenario in itself, and certainly for some – particularly parents, carers or older workers who have been there, done that – this sort of job is understandably the holy grail.

But not leaving the house and doing the bare minimum is a recipe for disaster when it comes to mental health. Anxiety and depression are the most common conditions suffered by those who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness, making up around 53 per cent of those currently off work.

Workers signed off sick who might then end up unemployed are likely to then face even poorer mental health: a review of 4000 people in the UK concluded in 2022 that treatments for depression were far more effective for those in work than for those who weren’t.

Those at the start of their careers seem particularly distressed. A report published by the Resolution Foundation earlier this year found that those in their early 20s are more likely to be out of work due to ill health than those in their early 40s, as the number of young people struggling with poor mental health rises.

A third of those aged 18 to 24 experienced symptoms of mental illness such as anxiety or depression in 2021/22, up from a quarter at the turn of the millennium.

You don’t have to look far to see how many people feel trapped by their employer’s remote-working handcuffs, especially among those who are younger. “I was WFB (Working from Bed)”, confesses one Reddit user who eventually changed jobs and went back to the office part-time, responding to a question from someone who said they were waking up “feeling totally meh” after two years of working from home.

“A lot of people who are vehemently against going back into the office are probably unknowingly suffering from depression that is making them want to stay at home,” argues a Reddit user on a different thread.

Of course not everyone agrees. Counting their lucky stars, one home working Reddit user writes: “I would literally eat s–- to keep the job I have now”.

There’s no denying that full-time home working (and even the discovery of a mouse jiggler) can do a world of good for some. Those who redirect their energy into a hobby or who previously felt overloaded juggling work and caring responsibilities will no doubt feel much happier in a job that is fully flexible, and will likely choose to work for longer as a result.

But trying to do a minimal amount of work, staying at home all week and putting up with an ill-suited job just because it’s flexible will turn out to be a mistake for the vast majority who go down that route.

The rates of anxiety, depression and worklessness, particularly among the young, suggests that something is going very wrong despite widespread improvements to working life. COVID-19 caused a much-needed global reassessment of the way we work as people realised they were putting too much of their life into their jobs. But going too far the other way is no good either.

The number of people still able to work from home every day and who can get away with the mouse jiggler trick might be dwindling as companies increasingly crack down on remote working and poor productivity.

But those who still have complete freedom to work exactly how they want should use the perk wisely, for their own sake.

- The Telegraph.

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