Smarter working means there is never a time to switch off

AN ONLINE ARTICLE titled "Here in Beijing 20 million people are pretending to live a life" went viral over the weekend, largely thanks to its main argument that most Beijing residents are so busy at work that they do not have the luxury of a life outside work. Ifeng.com commented on Monday:

The lives the post depicts are hardly new to urban residents and do not mean Beijing's 20 million residents are living only to work. They are, in fact, trying to live a life that has never been lived before. Traditionally there was always a distinction between working and not working. But the cost of living is high in metropolises such as Beijing and Shanghai and people are working more to pay for their lifestyles.

They have to work extra hours to pay the loans for the houses they have bought, they also have to send their children to training classes at the weekend so that their kids may not fall behind their peers. Some may have to spare some of their leisure hours for maintaining the necessary social connections.