Slack is a big setback for the labor movement . It undermines any distinction between work and leisure
As others have said, Slack often amplifies toxic workplace culture, just like any effective tool tends to be a "force multiplier" in the hands of its users.
I use Slack daily and I've never brought it home with me.
No I’m not. The workplace might be completely in the blue about this, but if a workplace uses a tool that offers convince in installing this tool to your personal devises (or off hour workstation usage):
a) Make it absolutely clear that this is not expected
b) Provide instructions for workers on how turn the tool off during non-work hours
c) Reprimand users that bother workers with this tool during non-work hours
Anything short of that is complacency in labor abuse.
The problem slack (and tools like it) offers is that there will be a point where installing and enabling it on personal devises or out side of work hours will be convenient, be it off site on a convention or when finishing up a tight deadline. After that time workers will probably not remove it from the devise (the power of defaults), and that opens up avenues for complacency in abuse. At no point does the workplace need to make a conscious choice of malice, however harm will happen if the tool is used without disclaimers.
This depends on the situation. A workplace that enforce after hours always-on presence? Absolutely despicable. Should even be illegal, in my opinion.
An employee who decides on their own to install Slack on their personal device and then decide on their own to open it outside work hours? That's on them.
The same pressure to check Slack on your personal phone on your off-time would be applied to work email, sms, or whatever it's used instead of slack
Even for workers that don’t engage in social activities over slack normally might install it to their personal devices during a conference because that is where their colleagues are conversing, and then simply forget to uninstall it after the conference is done.
A workplace has to be aware that this is how normal people use this tool, and needs to make sure that no one misuses this access to workers during off hours.