Balancing act: How Apple TV’s ‘Severance’ exemplifies collegiate stressors

Kofi Mframa, Opinions Editor

Imagine you’re given an opportunity to completely separate your work identity from your personal one, resulting in two distinct consciousnesses in one body. The Apple TV show “Severance” explores this possibility and the consequences therein.

The show follows Mark Scout, played by Adam Scott, who consensually undergoes a “severance” procedure to separate his work thoughts from his personal thoughts as a part of his employment at Lumon Industries. As events unfold, Scout becomes privy to the large web of lies and conspiracies surrounding his employer.

The procedure Scout and his coworkers underwent separates their consciousness while maintaining their physical form. The intention is to create an unmendable division between work and life — every company’s dream for their employers and every college’s dream for their students.

As college students, we are constantly preached at about the importance of a work-life balance. When I began watching “Severance,” I thought of the convenience of undergoing the procedure. I thought a complete separation of work and life would maximize my efficiency in both fields. 

But as the show progressed and exposed the evil underbelly of Lumon Industries, I realized just how difficult a balanced college life is to achieve. The overarching nature of modern college education forces us to exist in our work consciousness almost all of the time.

We’ve all been there. We’re out enjoying a night out with our friends when we feel our phones vibrate. We take a look and there it is — a Canvas notification. We are instantly ripped away from any fun we’re having and transported back to the anxieties we had when completing the assignment. 

It’s not just Canvas notifications that make collegiate academics so consuming, it’s that so much of it bleeds into what should be our personal lives. 

The fact that mostly everything is due at midnight leaves assignments and tasks lingering over our heads constantly. There’s always an assignment to be done, a project to work on or an essay to write. 

At least in the show, characters are able to switch out of their work consciousness as soon as they leave. They can enjoy their personal lives without the stressors of their jobs looming over them, to an extent, of course. But for us, the work doesn’t end when class is over, it follows us everywhere. 

In the show, the conspiracy surrounding his work and “severed” — the term used for those who underwent the “severance” procedure — state of being begin to unfold, Scout starts to become consumed with his work life in his personal life consciousness. This is the antithesis of what the complete separation of work and life promises. 

Having a work consciousness that supersedes a personal one prevents us from spending time understanding what makes us who we are. Our work shouldn’t be our defining characteristic. 

When the characters are in their work identity, they ponder who they are outside of it. They wonder if they have families, what their interests are and how they navigate the world around them. 

Like Scout, we find ourselves anxious about work and academics in our personal lives. Furthermore, the stressors of college aren’t just academic. 

During this time, many students find themselves making large decisions that will alter the rest of their lives. Many students have to take out large loans to put themselves through college and have to mentally prepare themselves for the stress and anxiety of paying off those loans for, potentially, the rest of their lives. Many students are the first in their families to go to college and the pressure to be successful weighs heavy on their shoulders. 

We deserve to be more than victims to overreaching academic institutions. We deserve to have the personal lives we were promised. Though the measures Lumon Industries went to ensure this balance for their employees, it implores us to question just how much we let work consume our lives — and just how far these institutions will go to make us wholly and solely theirs.