Description
The COVID-19 pandemic triggered one of the most significant transformations in modern work culture: a sudden, global shift to remote work. Once a rare privilege, remote work rapidly became the default for millions. As restrictions lifted, companies sought to restore in-person or hybrid models, but many workers resisted, challenging long-held assumptions about where and how work should occur.
To explore this socio-technical transformation, we are examining how attitudes toward working from home have evolved over time and how technologies have shaped these evolving perspectives. Using a hybrid computational–qualitative approach, the team analyzed public discourse in three Reddit communities (r/WFH, r/workfromhome, and r/remotework) across the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic eras.
The project combines large-scale data scraping, topic modeling, and reflexive thematic analysis to investigate how people collectively negotiated changes in work arrangements, digital tool use, and workplace culture. The dataset includes over 70,000 Reddit threads and more than 700,000 comments, enabling both longitudinal and thematic comparisons across time.
Importantly, this research treats Reddit not merely as a data source but as a site of social meaning-making. Through everyday posts, users articulate frustrations, adapt to new technologies, and reflect on evolving norms surrounding labor, surveillance, and flexibility. By examining these discussions, the project contributes to broader HCI and CSCW conversations about digital labor, post-pandemic collaboration, and the design of technologies that reflect workers’ lived experiences.
Presentations
S. Moore, C. Zhang, S. Morrison-Smith. 2025. How Reddit Users Framed the Role of Technology in Remote Work Before, During, and After the Pandemic. Proceedings of the 13th NY6 Undergraduate Research Conference.
Team
Faculty
- Dr. Sarah Morrison-Smith
Undergraduate Researchers
- Sydney Chen
- Seth Moore
- Susan Nie
- Juliette Santos
- Catherine Zhang