You did not gain an hour. You gained another task.

Really liked the quote from Dr Sam Illingworth on Substack “You did not gain an hour. You gained another task.” 

Back in November I wrote about something similar, questioning the belief that AI saves teachers time and reduces their workload. Along with the quote, Dr Sam Illingworth also shared a link to a study from UC Berkeley Haas which I think provides a fantastic example of something I wrote about in the post I referred to from November. That basically the introduction of technologies often appear to be time savers for the user, when in reality they tend to just shift norms and raise expectations. The study found that AI shifted what was previously normal, employees were now taking on more work and along with work that they previously wouldn’t have attempted before, so that the scope widened, whilst also continuing to prompt through lunch hours or in the evening. Working days becoming longer, more intense and raising their own expectations of what is possible, “expectations can gradually reset, and what was once extra effort becomes standard performance.” Here are some quotes from an interview with one of the research authors about the study.

“…Employees worked at a faster pace, took on a broader scope of tasks, and extended work into more hours of the day, often without being asked to do so.”

“First, people began taking on work that previously would have belonged to someone else or might not have been attempted at all. The scope of what counted as“my job” widened.”

“…work seeped into moments that used to function as pauses. People would send prompts during lunch, before meetings, or in the evening when an idea came to mind. This dissolved some of the natural stopping points in the workday.”

“As task scope expands and multiple AI-assisted workflows run in parallel, the workday becomes denser and more cognitively demanding. Because this expansion often feels self-driven and even exciting at first, expectations can gradually reset, and what was once extra effort becomes standard performance. That’s where a vicious cycle can form: increased capability leads to increased output, which leads to higher expectations, which then pressures further expansion.”

The results of this study appear to be a very good example of where introducing a new technology shifted what was the norm and raised expectations. Where employees “described feeling busier, more stretched, or less able to fully disconnect” and where “the cumulative effect creates strain over time.”

Whilst this study was focused on workers in a US technology company, I think there are lessons to be learned here for practitioners in our schools. For example, I could imagine many headteachers, deputy headteachers or members of senior leaderships teams, in particular, taking on extra tasks that previously would have been delegated to other members of their staff. Possibly thinking that with the use of AI, they could do that task quicker or even better than that person, so they may as well do it themselves. Their 'to-do list' which I'm sure is already pretty long, gets longer. There has been several recent reports where the introduction of generative AI into an organisation actually gives "everyone more work to do, and making them feel stressed and burnt out." A study published in 2024 recommended that "if new technology is being adopted to help teachers do their jobs, then school leaders need to make sure it will not add extra work for them", and to be aware that if a school implements a new digital technology then they "should make sure that they are streamlining the job of being a teacher by offsetting other tasks, and not simply adding more work to their load." Adding, if the adoption of new technology "adds to or increases teachers’ workloads, then adding technology increases the likelihood that a teacher will burn out."

Which takes us back to Dr Sam Illingworth quote, “You did not gain an hour. You gained another task.”