People love working from home. But does it love them back? A new study says no

A study in the journal Science found that people who work remotely had more depression, anxiety and visits to mental health professionals than those who work in jobs that can't be done remotely. Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images hide caption

Remote work has soared in popularity since the COVID-19 pandemic. But, a new study suggests the practice has made workers more socially isolated, anxious and depressed compared to people who work in-person in offices and other settings.

"Other studies have found that workers are willing to give up 4 to 10% of their earnings in order to have the ability to work remotely," says Natalia Emanuel , an economist at Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the main author of the new study published in the journal Science . "So there is a great desire for remote work."

And yet, she and her colleagues found that people in remote jobs have seen a rise in hours spent alone during the workday, and more visits to mental health care providers. In self-reports, they also assess their own mental health negatively.

The findings suggest that "people might be choosing poorly," when it comes to their wellbeing, says Nicholas Epley , a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, who wasn't involved in the study.

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That's probably because "it's very easy to recognize that the commute is a pain in the neck and the traffic sucks," compared to anticipating how missed social connections at work will impact us down the line, he says. His own research has documented that people "underestimate how well things will go when we actually reach out to connect with other people," he adds.

Epley says Emanuel and her colleagues found a way to answer a question he gets asked often: "What work from home does to us?"