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Issue 124
“Instant foods, instant communication, faster transportation-all of these recent developments are designed to save time. Ironically, though, instead of making more leisure time available, these developments have contributed to a pace of human affairs that is more rushed and more frantic than ever before.”

Have recent developments such as instant foods, instant communication and faster transportation contributed to a pace of human affairs that is more rushed and more frantic than ever before, instead of making more leisure time available to people as the speaker claims? In my view, actually, recent developments, which are aimed at bringing more comfort and entertainment to people, make people's lives more fast than ever before.

To begin with, the fact is contrary to the theory that more developed technologies today will make people's lives much easier. As the technological developments become increasingly fast nowadays, the efficiency and effectively of people's work is much better than before. After the first industrial revolution, people no longer needed to do a lot of physical work, which was done instead by mechanics. Then, more and more mechanical equipments and electrical ones came into being after the second industrial revolution. Now, we are still in the process of the third industrial revolution, which brings with us computers and digital time. Through computers, we can work out thousands of problems that cannot be imagined before the invention of computers. We are now living in a world with unheard of modernization. By understanding the circumstances, we are assured that people now have more leisure time available than before. However, the fact is opposite to what we think. Statistics about USA describe: in 1960, the average U.S. family included only one breadwinner, who worked just over 40 hours per week. Since then the average work week has increased steadily to nearly 60 hours today, and in most families there are now two breadwinners which is quite different than situations more than 40 years ago. Most people want to know the reason why it happened like this.

The first reason is that while the fast developments of technologies and production efficiency, managers in each enterprise are always bringing up more difficult goals to employees. It is because the population of the whole world is increasing so fast that competitions among companies and people are extraordinarily serious. If any company or individual stop developing, more competitive ones will take the place of them, which compels each one work harder and harder to get enough money for living and therefore lessen time for entertainment. Managers face difficulties that may lead to the failure of their companies while employees fear that their job will be replaced by other individuals. So we find out everyone is trying his/her best to work, and without so much time as ever for leisure.

The other reason may be that it is the fast speeds of the technological developments that make people spend more time in studying more knowledge. Take the computer for an example. Most of people now are used to utilizing computers to do their jobs, which indeed accelerate the pace of working. Many problems that might spend several years before will be handled for only a few days now. However, the time spent for studying the skill of using computers is too much. Moreover, as the technologies of computers changes day after day, people should study this knowledge all the time, which consists a lot part of our free time.

In sum, although the developments of technologies bring us many advantages to our normal lives, it has not made more leisure time available to us, but instead has contributed to a pace of human affairs that is more rushed and more frantic than ever before.