Only in a narrow sense. If anything employers in our industry tend to deliberately encourage employees to socialise (within reason): casual contact is important to help different parts of the org chart break out of their silos, liminal spaces are an important route for information that might be suppressed over normal channels, and almost everyone knows at some level that you can't do 40 hours of productive programming per week. The way I see it, a certain amount of socialising on the clock is win-win.
> One of the problems is the 8 hour work day. I don't want to be forced to spend 40+ hours a week with co-workers. That is why people aren't having healthy social lives. Work is draining their time and energy.
I don't disagree, but don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Given that I do have to work 8 hours/day, I'd rather humanise that time as much as possible than refuse out of some sense of accelerationism.
Wfh definitely isn't accelerationism (or perfect). It's just a chance to live somewhere less oppressively expensive and have less surveillance from your employer all day. It's up to the individual to take advantage of that. If socializing is important to them, there are more opportunities to do it, it just takes a bit more work but I would argue the results are much healthier and more natural than relying on work and centering relationships around working.
Many would argue that eating right and exercising is healthy, yet 30%+ of people in developed countries are overweight and the percentage is increasing.
At some point we have to accept reality. People are flawed (yet they somehow manage to live their lives :-) ).
Plus, people still work 8+ hours a day, so you can't really interact much with friends.
The main thing you win is geographically, I guess. No more time lost in commute plus maybe less time lost meeting with friends because you don't have to go from the office to the meeting place (though that will obviously depend on how far your friends are from your home).
I'd also describe the office as anti-social as I would not voluntarily spend my time with the majority of my co-workers and having to be around them day in and day out is extremely draining and demoralizing. I find surrounding myself with people I actually care about and have real bonds with to be far more positive.
For others they prefer their co-workers over forced social socializion due to family relations.
> For others they prefer their co-workers over forced social socialization due to family relations.
Honestly, these are the co-workers I hate being around the most as they treat you like an outlet for not just social contact but often therapy or venting about their family. I literally never want to hear about a co-worker's terrible marriage (for an example I've had to deal with quite a bit).
It does fray social ties. We're social beings, made for face to face interactions. That's how we operate. There's a reason almost every language has a proverb along the lines of "out of sight, out of mind".