Addicted to Busy

Available for over a year

Oliver Burkeman asks if we've become addicted to busy. Either because it makes us feel we're heroes struggling against the odds or because by never sitting still we can avoid our problems. There's a ritual of the modern workplace - one you've heard and most likely indulged in yourself. It's the call and response we go through when you ask a workmate how they're doing: "Busy!" "So busy." "Mentally busy." It is pretty obviously a boast disguised as a complaint. And our simultaneously grim and half chuckled reply comes as a kind of congratulation: "Ha, better than the opposite." When did we start doing that? Producer: Peter McManus First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.