Pew Research does some of the most interesting work in the U.S. on the impact of information technology on daily, family, and working life. A good example of this is their new study of their new Digital Life in 2025 report on Technology’s Impact on Workers [pdf]. Here’s the summary:

The internet and cell phones have infiltrated every cranny of American workplaces, and digital technology has transformed vast numbers of American jobs. Work done in the most sophisticated scientific enterprises, entirely new technology businesses, the extensive array of knowledge and media endeavors, the places where crops are grown, the factory floor, and even mom-and-pop stores has been reshaped by new pathways to information and new avenues of selling goods and services. For most office workers now, life on the job means life online.

Pew Research surveyed online a representative sample of adult internet users and asked those who have jobs a series of questions about the role of digital technology in their work lives. This is not a sample representative of all workers. It covers online adults who also have full- or part-time jobs in any capacity.1 The most recent survey data from Pew Research in late 2013 shows that 94% of jobholders are internet users and they work in all kinds of enterprises from technology companies to non-technology firms; from big corporations to small proprietor operations; and from those in urban areas, farms, and places in between.

Among the findings: email remains the Rasputin (or Mary Queen of Scots) of communications technologies, widely-reviled but impossible to kill; social media isn’t important to workers (and somewhat counterintuitively, even less important to non-office based workers than those who work in offices); and many workers report that technology allows them to work longer hours (ro “allows”).