Consequences of Overnight Work Travel for Personal Social Relations: Problems, Promises, and Further Repercussions

Abstract The article uses survey data from Sweden to examine social consequences of the mobile society. Key questions tackled include the implications of overnight work travel for the travellers’ ability to cultivate locally based and long‐distance friendships and the potential of travel to provide a source of new acquaintances. Data analysis indicates that widening social networks and increasing opportunities to achieve co‐presence with long‐distance friends, as brought by mobility, represent significant consequences of overnight work travel from an individual’s standpoint. This experience was salient even among those respondents who travelled no more than occasionally, while only the most frequent travellers perceived their travel as something impeding with their chances of sustaining local social ties. While the benefits deriving from travel thus seem incontestable, it may therefore not be possible either to entirely discard the prevalent notion of mobile lifestyles as a factor undermining social cohesion and promoting isolation and loneliness.