Remember when workers regularly left the office at 5 p.m. to enjoy a relaxing evening with their families, never to hear a peep from their employers or coworkers until they returned to work the next morning? Or sat back with a magazine while in flight on a business trip, leaving them rejuvenated and ready to tackle work once they reached their destination?

For most full-time office employees, these memories are either distant or nonexistent. Thanks to smartphones, our jobs follow us around everywhere – to the airport, the dinner table and even to bed. Recent surveys have pointed to a rise in off-the-clock emailing, including one by Adobe Systems, which found 50% of workers check email while resting in bed. (So much for the resting part!)  

America's working culture is a far cry from France's, where a law recently passed forbidding employees at companies with 50 or more workers from sending emails during nonbusiness hours. "The development of information and communication technologies, if badly managed or regulated, can have an impact on the health of workers," Article 25 of the El Khomri law, named after French Minister of Labour Myriam El Khomri, read. "Among them, the burden of work and the informational overburden, the blurring of the borders between private life and professional life, are risks associated with the usage of digital technology."