> The fact this study even exists is a sign of something having gone very wrong IMHO.

I agree, but for different reasons: The paper is an example of someone sending out surveys to collect self-reports and then writing a paper title as if they had performed a study. They did not. They just surveyed some college students and drew conclusions by running statistical analyses on the data until they got something that seemed significant.

It appears to have worked, though, as I’ve seen it shared across the internet by assuming it’s a robust proof of something.

This paper is very bad. The numbers in the abstract don’t even add up, which any reviewer should have caught. To be honest this feels like an undergraduate level assignment where students are asking to give a survey and do some statistical analyses. The students usually pick a topic close to their own life (like Super Mario Games) and then come up with some result by playing with their survey numbers until they find something.

I agree, but hard work is nothing new. Did the average person throughout history have more leisure than we do? I doubt it. I'm uncertain how to think about burnout in this context. Did they have burnout and were forced to work through it? Were they better at pacing themselves? Maybe the type of work (mental rather than physical labor) or circumstances (working for a corporation) today are more conducive to burnout?

> The whole culture we have emphasises trading working the best years of your life just so you can (maybe) rest for a little while at the end of your life when your health is failing, which has always been really sad to me.

Have you considered getting a job you like better?

You can also take sabbaticals. Or retire early.

This is the problem of evil right. Those human tribes who just chilled out after meeting the bare requirements of survival died off because some greedy assholes outcompeted them.

A recent HN thread I cannot seem to find discussed the idea that currently in the US work is the default state, and leisure exists to refuel for work. At other times in history, leisure was the default state and work existed to enable leisure. This context affects everything in life - IE a microwave frozen meal is excellent in the work viewpoint (time value ratio), but if you enjoy cooking it’s horrible in the leisure viewpoint.

...I don't view myself as a consumable. I enjoy accomplishing. I do not enjoy burnout. I'm interested in ways to prevent it. It's really that simple.

I don't particularly find this survey compelling, but I also don't want to be judged as some vampiric capitalist just because I'd like to have more work bandwidth.

Especially since we're about to give birth to an entire species which is better suited to the task!