And while we may legitimately feel busy, Americans’ working hours have steadily decreased over the last seven decades. In 1948, when the government started keeping track, Americans worked an average of 42.8 hours a week. Today we average 38.7, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey.
The finding that busyness has become a status symbol turns Thorstein Veblen’s idea of conspicuous consumption among the “leisure class” on its head. Veblen theorized that the absence of work, or conspicuous leisure, was the ultimate status symbol.
But at some point, our popular conception of wealth changed from something like Thurston Howell III with a yacht and plenty of downtime, to a mega-mogul working around the clock.
Bellezza and her colleagues write that traditional status symbols like luxury cars or handbags also make people seem less likeable, so busyness may be “a potentially more socially acceptable and efficient way for people to signal their social status.”
They theorized that Americans might be more impressed by being busy than would Europeans because of our belief in social mobility — that if we just work hard enough, we can achieve the American Dream.
Sure enough, when they tried similar research with Italians, the results flipped. Italians considered people with more leisure time to have higher status than those who were working all the time.
So next time you’re feeling crazy busy, think about whether what you’re busy doing is really accomplishing your goals. And if all else fails, consider Italy.