Moving away, inwards

In the Eastern bloc back in the day there was a concept of "internal emigration." This referred to the practice of just moving through the day, acquitting onesself at one's day job, and then getting home to get on with the focus of one's real life, be it art, family, hobby, S & M, whatever. It was basically trying to ignore where and how one lived in reality, and supplant it with fantasy.

I'm sure HR people have a similar concept here. And there are police-state like measures to combat it, like blocking URLs for non-work email, entertainment sites, and (gasp!) blogs. But what are the incremental costs of people whose interests are so disaligned from those of their employers that they pretty much just dial it in and focus all their energies on other aspects of their lives? How much more could companies achieve if they could harness that energy? Would people be happier if they were fully engaged with their work? Would their parallel and therefore total lives be less rich if they were deprived of a downpressor?

One thing's for certain. We're unlikely to find out.