It's the most hyper-busy time of the year. Holiday shopping, hosting and travel preparations. Year-end financial moves. A mountain of work to finish before using up any final vacation days. For once, the all too common "I'm just so busy" gripe feels like a legitimate complaint.

But most of the year, it has taken on the feel of an overused humblebrag, a self-deprecating yet showy effort to tout one's own importance, value and desirability at work or among friends. In our information-drenched, 24/7 work workplaces, where time for leisure has become an even scarcer commodity for many professionals than money to buy luxury goods, being "so busy" seems to be a badge of honor, a status symbol in our always-on world.

Now researchers from Columbia, Georgetown and Harvard universities say that's exactly what it is, with "busyness" replacing conspicuous consumption as a public marker for our worth. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, based on a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Consumer Research, the trio argue that "busyness" is an actual way people signal their importance - and that marketers are responding to it.