You know how people keep insisting this generation is a bunch of lazy narcissists concerned only with the avocado toast right in front of their faces? Add this to the file of counterarguments calling bullshit on that tired trope: study after study shows that most workers today check in on their work situation at least once or twice a week during their time off.
We strongly desire flexible work schedules; nearly half of workers say they don't have enough time off, and yet when we do get away, we can't really stay away. Why is that?
At Girlboss, we've been tracking the always-on work culture for years, and the data keeps getting sharper. A 2026 study by ZeroBounce found that only 29% of professionals fully disconnect on vacation, and when asked specifically about email, an even smaller 19% said they genuinely don't check it.
Meanwhile, 3 in 4 U.S. workers didn't use all their allotted PTO in 2024, and 60% said they struggled to fully disconnect even when they did take time off. Half felt guilty about taking time off in the first place.
Chalk it up to FOMO plus anxiety plus the crippling weight of the workload waiting for your return. More than half of workers report needing to know things are under control in their absence. Others are trying to lessen the amount they'll come back to.
Some just feel guilty that they might have left their colleagues high and dry. Contrast this with previous generations, who didn't have the ability to be constantly plugged in. They had no choice but to soak up every ounce of sun and margarita sans distraction, allowing them to come back to work genuinely refreshed and recharged.
Americans Are Terrible at Taking Vacation
Our culture has serious hang-ups when it comes to taking time off. Nearly half of U.S. workers expected to have unused vacation days at the end of 2024. More than a third hadn't taken a vacation at all that year. And 60% of workers who did take time off still didn't fully disconnect: checking emails, taking calls, mentally never leaving the desk they were supposed to have left behind.
There's a persistent mismatch between what managers say they believe and how their workplaces actually function. Over 80% of managers believe vacation time significantly improves employee well-being, but most employees feel their company is ambivalent or quietly discouraging about the concept of actually going away.
The research is also pretty clear on the professional cost: employees who consistently forfeit vacation days are less likely to have received a recent raise, bonus, or promotion. The work martyrdom doesn't pay.
If you're building toward a role where this will be an ongoing tension, reading about one woman's experience negotiating a four-day workweek is a useful reminder that the structure of your work is actually negotiable; you don't have to wait until burnout forces the conversation.
The "Right to Disconnect" Is Becoming a Legal Matter
Here's the part that's genuinely new: governments are starting to treat the inability to disconnect not as a personal discipline problem but as a workplace rights issue. Australia passed a Right to Disconnect law in August 2024, giving workers the legal right to refuse to monitor or respond to work communications outside of their contracted hours without penalty.
France, Portugal, Belgium, and Ireland have similar laws in place. In the US, no federal law exists yet, but California and New Jersey have introduced bills, and the conversation is moving.
What this signals is that the problem isn't you. It's a system that was built to keep you available, and addressing it requires more than telling yourself to put your phone down at the beach. Setting actual work boundaries — communicating them clearly and in advance — is the structural fix that complements the individual habit changes below.
What to Actually Do About It
If checking in occasionally is genuinely what makes you feel less stressed, fine, but try to keep it to a designated window. Pick one 20-minute slot per day, do your check, and close it. Don't let it bleed into the whole day.
The best practical trick: If you have a mail app that aggregates all your accounts, temporarily remove your work email so you have to manually log in to check it. That friction is the point. The barrier between impulse and action is where vacation happens.
Lose yourself in a podcast, a book, a long walk, or at the bottom of a pint glass, and let yourself actually rest for once. This piece on recovering from burnout is worth reading before you go, not after.
And if you're burning through your PTO faster than you're getting it, or you're realizing you haven't taken real time off in longer than you'd like to admit, this guide to affording a career break is a useful framework for thinking about what a more intentional reset would actually look like, financially and practically.
Your boss probably isn't going to send you flight deals to Aruba. But the research is clear: rest is not a reward for work. It's part of how work gets done well. The OOO auto-reply exists for a reason. Use it, and then actually honor it.
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