Buzzword: Weisure

What it means. If you’ve ever dashed off a quick e-mail to a colleague when you’re at your kid’s soccer game or forged a new business connection when you were otherwise Facebooking for fun, you’re part of the growing weisure class. Sociologist Dalton Conley, a professor at New York University, coined the term to describe the increasingly blurry line between work and leisure. “Increasingly, it’s not clear what constitutes work and what constitutes fun,” Conley recently told CNN.com.

Why the buzz? Technology is a major contributor to weisure time. Omnipresent online connectivity and multifunction PDAs and smart phones keep us virtually tethered to our desks 24/7/365. Social-networking sites, meanwhile, are “part fun and part instrumental in our knowledge community,” says Conley. He contrasts the current work-obsessed culture with the 1950s, when it was taboo to talk business with friends, and work and home spheres were kept separate.

(As fans of Seinfeld well know, it’s important to keep certain worlds apart, as George and Jerry discussed in “The Pool Guy,” an episode that originally aired on November 16, 1995, during the show’s seventh season:

George: “You have no idea of the magnitude of this thing. If she (George’s girlfriend, Susan) is allowed to infiltrate this world, then George Costanza as you know him ceases to exist. You see, right now I have Relationship George. But there is also Independent George. That’s the George you know, the George you grew up with—Movie George, Coffee-Shop George, Liar George, Bawdy George.”

Jerry: “I love that George.”

George: “Me too, and he’s dying. If Relationship George walks through this door, he will kill Independent George. A George divided against itself cannot stand!”)

We’ve reported on the rise of the paycation, in which people look to earn extra cash during their vacations. And anxiety over the recession is undoubtedly another cause of weisure: Workers seem to be more inclined to check in more during their vacations, perhaps out for fear of falling behind or losing favor with the boss.

Weisure seems to border on workaholicism—voluntary or imposed—but it’s not always unhealthy, says Conley. Some Americans mix business with pleasure because they genuinely enjoy their jobs. He borrows Richard Florida’s term “creative class” to describe this group of career-loving professionals.

Still, even in cases where weisure is willful, there’s no substitute for real R&R. If you can or are so inclined this Memorial Day weekend, turn off your PDA or phone or keep the laptop stowed away. Or, with a nod to Timothy Leary, turn off your phone, log out of the company network, and tune in to some good old-fashioned leisure time.—Daniel DiClerico | e-mail | Twitter

Essential information: Check out our buyer’s guide to gas grills and our tips for taking a Memorial Day road trip.

Comments

[P G]

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