--- title: "Working From Home Has a Grim Effect on Your Brain, Surprise Research Finds" description: "New research found an uptick in depression and loneliness in remote workers compared to their in-office colleagues." date: "2026-06-13" modified: "2026-06-13" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/health-medicine/work-from-home-grim-effect-brain" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" - "Mental Health" --- # Working From Home Has a Grim Effect on Your Brain, Surprise Research Finds ![A female employee sits at her home office in front of her laptop and rests her head on one hand looking forlorn.]() *Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Shutterstock* Most people would kill for a work-from-home job, but it turns out it can have some grim effects on your mental health. A new [study published in the journal *Science*]() found that remote workers were more likely to report feeling anxious, depressed, and being socially isolated compared to people who worked in-office. No commute and having the comforts of home is undoubtedly an upside, but it seems there's no substitute for genuine social connections. Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business who wasn't involved in the study, [told *NPR*]() that workers might be underestimating the value of being to "reach out to connect with other people," and that "people might be choosing poorly" in terms of their well-being. Until now, most studies have focused on remote work's impact on productivity and job satisfaction, according to an editor's summary, while there's been little insight into its relationship to loneliness and mental health. To fill that gap, lead author Natalia Emanuel, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and her colleagues conducted an analysis that drew on data from five national surveys on American workers, comparing "remotable jobs" that can be done remotely, like software engineering, and "non-remotable" jobs, like surgery. It found that the hours that workers in remotable jobs spent working alone surged by 58 percent compared to workers in non-remotable jobs. That may not be surprising, since they're staying at home, but the level of isolation could be extreme, as there was also a 72 percent rise in their chance of spending an entire day with no human contact whatsoever. It was even worse for remote workers who lived alone, with an 83 percent chance of spending a whole day with no human contact. "Likewise, the increase in mental distress is almost twice as large for those living alone as for those living with their family," Epley told *NPR*. Given the [connection between mental and physical wellbeing](), this becomes a genuine health problem, as "being alone compromises your immune system functioning, your cardiovascular system functioning," Epley said. Of course, the findings "don't suggest that every office should be forcing everybody to come in to work," Epley told *NPR* — something that spiteful employers are trying to find any excuse to impose on their underlings. But it's something else to consider for anyone looking to ditch the office, and a reminder that we may need to be a little bit more deliberate about our social lives if we're not getting our daily dose of human interaction through work. **More on mental health:** [*Psychiatrists Investigating People Who Get Trapped Inside Vivid Daydreams*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()