Working And Health: Allocating time

We live at frenetic speed. We're on 24/7. Global is the new local. A teenager today is three times more likely to send an "instant" message than an e-mail.

Is this pace killing us? If your work includes a graveyard shift, the answer might well be yes. A study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization, says overnight shift work could be a carcinogen. Even though the evidence is preliminary, the plausibility passes the common sense test. If you don't get enough sleep, your immune system will be more vulnerable. (Sounds a lot like the message most parents convey.)

Night work has become common for many professions, from flight attendants to factory workers. But many of the rest of us work at all hours, too.

That's why we need more study -- and a new discourse about the nature of work in the 21st century. We might find that it's in our interest to slow down. Imagine this outcome: Local is the new global, people work at regular, more humane hours and instant communications are given up in favor of letters written by pen and ink.

Sounds like a good dream, right? It's certainly a worthy goal. The only thing is, we'll need to make time for that.