Event focuses on how to cope with living in the digital age

Beyond Balance, a one-day event focusing on how digital technology affects our work, our homes and everything in between, will take place in London on Monday, 27 June.

 

Beyond Balance symposium showcases latest research examining work-life balance

Open to businesses, technology developers, policymakers, HR professionals, flexible workers, researchers, postgraduate students, entrepreneurs and the media, the event will feature the latest research and debates taking place across 16 UK universities.

The keynote speeches will be given by Claire Fox and Oliver Burkeman.  Claire is the global HR Director at Save the Children International, and author of Work/Life Symbiosis: The Model for Happiness and Balance

Oliver is a journalist who writes The Guardian’s This Column Will Change Your Life.  His books include The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking, and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done.

Beyond Balance is run by the Balance Network, which is led by Anglia Ruskin University and is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.  The event on 27 June will include sessions on:

  •  Mobile technologies & business travellers
  •  E-resilience: what’s the solution?
  •  Material desires: design & work-life balance
  • How to life-swap with personal data
  • Work-life balance, digital technologies and energy demand
  • Reconceptualising work-life boundaries
  • Crowdsourcing: prolonging working life
  • Going ‘off-grid’: connectivity during travel

Dr Rosie Robison of Anglia Ruskin University, the Principal Investigator of the Balance Network, said: “Digital and mobile technologies are becoming an increasingly pervasive feature of our lives.

“Whilst they offer unprecedented opportunities to connect and share our lives, and enable new patterns and practices of work, the rise of this network society also raises the challenges of being ‘always on’ and having to deal with the collision of social worlds, as our working and home lives become frustratingly blurred.”

Dr David Kirk of Newcastle University, Co-Investigator of the Balance Network, added: “Researchers are beginning to grapple with the complexities of hyper-mobile lives and the changing natures of family life, and are exploring the ways in which digital technologies might support users.  For example, new tools might enable living and working at a slower pace, and help manage the ‘digital deluge’ happening around us.

“The Beyond Balance event will bring together a range of voices to explore what work-life balance means for us in the 21st century.”

The event, on Monday, 27 June (9.30am-5pm) takes place at the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Savoy Place, London, and there are a limited number of places available at £10.  To register, visit Anglia Ruskin University’s online store.  For more information, please contact Stephanie Cziczo stephanie.cziczo@anglia.ac.uk

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For more press information please contact:
Jon Green on t: 01245 68 4717, e: jon.green@anglia.ac.uk
Jamie Forsyth on t: 01245 68 4716, e: jamie.forsyth@anglia.ac.uk
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