Citizens of the Technological Age: (Un)lucky Us!

One statement in this week’s reading that stood out to me was the fact that one of the original ‘promises’ of technology was the benefit of extended leisure time. It seems appropriate to use technology to respond to this sentiment: http://i45.tinypic.com/2njes9l.gif. Although there are innumerable realistic advantages to our technological age, the luxury of leisure has not been one of them in my experience.

As computer applications, speedy transportation, cellphones, and all other sorts of advanced devices continue to impact schools and businesses, it seems that educators and employers are keen to respond to the aid that technology provides with more tasks, higher expectations, and more complicated procedures. Because of this, many individuals still wake before sunrise, return home just before dark, and end up falling asleep ten minutes into the movie that they were finally able to sit down and watch. To make matters worse, video games, YouTube, Facebook, and even Lolcats has made it so easy to procrastinate on academic, work-related, and domestic responsibilities, which also detracts from our free time.

I find it ironic that most American labor is now completed in a quiet, stationary position while many forms of leisure activities today involve outdoor physical engagement. Furthermore, I resent modern technology for taking away the simplicity of being able to curl up on the couch next to my family with a notebook and a pen to complete assignments. Now I spend my evenings insolated in a tiny room hunched in front of the glaring computer screen on a hard chair with the perpetual purr of the computer luring my mind into a drowsy haze. At this rate, I will be spending all of my future ‘leisure time’ in some doctor’s office collecting recommendations for neck and back pain medications or getting my eyeglasses prescription strengthened for the umpteenth time. Therefore, I conclude that toil and drudgery have not in fact been eliminated from our lives like the early technological theorists predicted. Now we are just experiencing it in hyper-speed.