At first, it seemed like a great idea. Instant messaging to reduce email overload, AI to speed up writing, automation to save a few minutes on low-value tasks. Each of these tools was a rational solution to a very real problem, but very quickly, as the solution became popular among employees, the problem shifted and the benefits seen at the beginning gradually evaporated.
What was supposed to free up time ended up taking more, and what was supposed to lighten the load created more. This paradox is not new and is known as the Jevons paradox. Applied to work, it is a law of management that is too often forgotten when new tools are deployed that are supposed to make our lives easier.
In brief:
- The introduction of digital tools aimed at improving efficiency (messaging, AI, automation) often has the opposite effect: instead of reducing the workload, it increases it, illustrating the Jevons paradox.
- The Jevons paradox, originally observed in the use of coal, shows that the more efficient a technology is, the more it is used, thereby canceling out the expected gains, a mechanism now widely known as the rebound effect.
- In digital businesses, tools that are supposed to lighten the workload often lead to overload (increased demands, decreased concentration, creation of new tasks), reducing overall productivity.
- This dynamic reveals a biased managerial approach, where efficiency is valued without questioning the usefulness or relevance of tasks; technology becomes a response to needs that it itself helps to create.
- Rethinking performance means moving away from a logic of intensification to focus on the quality of work, concentration, and meaning, evaluating tools according to their systemic and human effects rather than their technical ones.
Jevons’ paradox, an old concept that is still relevant today
It was in 1865 that British economist William Stanley Jevons first observed a trend in the coal industry that was counterintuitive, to say the least. Far from reducing coal consumption, improvements in the efficiency of steam engines actually increased demand for it. The more efficient a technology becomes, the more it is used, and the more the resource it consumes is in demand.
In his book The Coal Question, Jevons formulated this principle as follows:
“It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”
Transposed to the world of work, this could mean that the more time or effort a tool saves us, the more effort we put in to compensate, sometimes to the point of exhaustion.
Jevons effect or rebound effect?
The Jevons effect is actually a special case of what is now more commonly referred to as the rebound effect. Both describe the same mechanism: an improvement in efficiency (technological, energy, organizational, etc.) does not necessarily lead to a reduction in use, but may instead cause it to increase, thereby canceling out the expected gains.
But there is a nuance:
While the Jevons effect refers to the original case, identified in 1865 in the coal and steam engine industry, the rebound effect is a modern generalization used in various fields (ecology, digital technology, labor economics, etc.) to describe the systemic consequences of increased efficiency.
So when we talk about overload linked to digital tools, automation that accelerates production rates, or AI that pushes us to produce more content, we are talking about a rebound effect, but in spirit we are totally in line with Jevons’ logic.
The digital business: fertile ground
Modern organizations are the perfect place to observe this paradox. Where common sense would suggest that the proper use of technology would reduce effort and the amount of work, it only increases demands and workloads.
Take collaborative tools, for example. They were supposed to simplify exchanges, but in reality they have multiplied communication channels, encouraged instantaneity, and made concentration more difficult. A study by Qatalog and Cornell University shows that simply switching between tools results in an average loss of 45% productivity, with 9.5 minutes needed to regain concentration after each interruption (Workgeist Report)
The same logic applies to artificial intelligence. It promises to automate repetitive tasks and provide intelligent assistance, but once available, it gives rise to new uses, new needs, new expectations, and creates new tasks. We write more, we invent new tasks, and in the end, instead of replacing us, the tool makes us even more active.
This is why the dream of energy-efficient AI will probably never be more than a dream (Why AI will never be energy efficient).
False managerial rationality
Jevons’ paradox is so prevalent in business because it perfectly reflects a view of work that confuses progress with intensification. Efficiency is seen as an ideal that is rarely questioned in terms of its scope or purpose. We seek to optimize what exists without ever asking whether it is worth optimizing or even worth doing in the first place. As Drucker said, “There is nothing more useless than doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” We automate a flow without questioning its relevance. We digitize a process without ever simplifying it.
This bias can also be explained by governance that is too often driven by technological offerings rather than the needs of employees. It is not need that creates the tool, but the tool that generates a new need, sometimes artificial, often poorly anticipated and, in a world where attention is a scarce resource, the more we gain in efficiency on one task, the more we lose attention on the whole of our work.
Ultimately, what was supposed to increase our productivity and reduce our mental load is doing exactly the opposite, and these are phenomena that we are now very good at measuring (Digital Infobesity: When Collaboration Tools Degrade Productivity, QWL and Amplify Mental Workload and Hyperconnectivity in the workplace: digital becomes a burden).
Rethinking performance through the lens of Jevons’ paradox
What Jevons’ paradox reveals when applied to work is that just because a tool makes it possible to do something faster or more easily does not necessarily mean that it should be used more. The challenge is not to produce more work, but to produce better work with less noise (Productivity: what if quality was the new quantity?).
This requires a change in managerial attitude. We need to reintroduce the question of meaning into the choice of tools and measure the real effects of technologies not on a local indicator (processing time, responsiveness, volume) but on a systemic indicator such as the quality of work, the ability to concentrate or the mental load.
It also means viewing digital transformation not as a race for sophistication, but as an opportunity to rethink work. Technological progress is only valuable if it enables us to do better, less often, with greater discernment, whereas today it is often used to do more, less well, and at a considerable cost from a human perspective.
Bottom line
Jevons’ paradox is often presented as an economic phenomenon, but it deserves to be recognized as a law of contemporary management. In a world saturated with tools, notifications, and where everything is measured, the real challenge is no longer to produce more efficiently, but to resist the call of efficiency, which we mistakenly believe to be unlimited.
Until organizations understand that every apparent gain in productivity can mask hidden costs in the form of overload, fragmentation of work, or loss of meaning, they will continue to deploy solutions that exacerbate the problems they claim to solve.
Image credit: Image generated by artificial intelligence via ChatGPT (OpenAI)
Related articles:
Hyperconnectivity in the workplace: digital becomes a burden
Why your Digital Workplace is hurting your organization’s performance
Digital Infobesity: When Collaboration Tools Degrade Productivity, QWL and Amplify Mental Workload
Remote work and productivity: what if we rethought the real drivers of efficiency?
How can you avoid becoming a bottleneck in the workplace?
A few ideas to ensure you are more productive than busy
