U.S. workers’ leisure time shrank 20% last year, down from an average of 20 hours a week in 2007 to an average of 16 hours in 2008. During the same period, their average work week increased by 1 hour. Why the 3-hour discrepancy? Researchers at Harris Interactive speculate that stressed-out employees are spending more time at home checking their email and thinking about work – that’s not exactly work, but it certainly isn’t leisure, either.

SOURCE: Harris Interactive

Now I remember what I wanted to say! I agree with both – but what I don’t like (and just wrote this on someone’s blog – forget whose) is that so many people who “sell” technology don’t give a balanced approach to it. It’s always “oh, wow, isn’t this great!” I suppose, though, that you might say that about the Luddites – they often take the same approach in reverse, “This technology is driving us nuts.” Anyway – just wanted to add that.

I live in Amish country. My local WalMart has horse and buggy tie-ups. I hear the clip-clop of horses on our old brick streets everyday. I see the beauty of simplicity and the value of technology.

You’ve listed many wonderful things about it. I just don’t like intrinsically linking it to progress and assuming all progress is good.

But, I’m like Michael…I agree with you and me too Thanks for taking a lot of time to respond. And isn’t it amazing that we can be having this discussion! Ah…technology!

We shall have to see what our guest says about Tom’s comment – likely the longest comment ever on this blog! Corky, we’ve written before about the need to continue get together in person – especially at meetings and conventions. Marc, so who pays only 20K anymore for an employee – seems a bit chintzy, no? Smile.

And, Tom, I don’t know how we do this – but Sheryl and I agree completely with Pat and completely with you. It’s part of our problem. Thanks for the time you took and the great examples.

In 1800, global life expectancy at birth was less than 30 years, in 1900 it had risen into the mid-40 year range. Today, global life expectancy at birth is 67 years.
So yes, fewer people are starving and dying of disease.

In 1900 the average work week exceeded 50 hours in the industrial west. Now, the average work week averages under 40 hours. plus we no longer, at least in the West, have the horrible child labor conditions prevalent in the 19th century. We forget that for most people childhood is a recent invention.

Are students more prepared? Than in my day? Absolutely. I had Encyclopedia Britannica and a crappy school library, these kids have the world. Are you kidding me? It’s not technology that’s failed the kids its us adults who’ve created the modern educational curriculum that’ve failed the kids.

My son not only takes Chinese but he can get on Skype and dialogue for free with someone in China. Wow! Absolutely information is being turned into knowledge. Every day. And it’s being used to promote ignorance but, then again, when the plague swept Europe in the 1300’s and wiped out 1/2 the population people were burning people at the stake because they thought they were witches or demons who’d brought this calamity upon them. How many people got burned at the stake during the asian bird flu scare?

Are people, et al, more connected. Yes. How we choose to use the connection is the issue. For the most part it’s used for good. It’s used to promote understanding. It’s the fringe and fanatics, always, that use technology for spreading lies and misinformation. Shame on us for failing in our due diligence and buying the lies.

Are people more compassionate and giving of themselves and do corporations encourage this? No and yes, I believe that people don’t engage as much as they could. On the other hand, technology enables sites like http://www.kiva.org to make it easy for you and I to have an impact globally and 24 year old friends of my daughter can set up their own online sites benefiting orphanages in Africa (babyafrica.gemsolv.com).

Corporations may not give employees a day a week but look at the sponsorship roster for any charity event. Whose names are on it. Mr. & Mrs. Joe Smith? No. IBM, Wells Fargo, Microsoft, etc. Who’re manning the phones for Jerry Lewis MD fund raising? Teams from corporate America using technology donated by corporate America.

The world’s problems are caused as much by the fact that advances in medicine (technology) and food production (technology) have allowed this planet’s human population to explode from 1 billion in 1900 to 6 billion plus today. More people are dying because there are more people. More wars are being fought because their are more independent countries feeling their oats than in the old colonial days. Yep, technology caused this problem but we’d all be better off living to age 30, on average, than 67 and bumping elbows with a few billion fewer folks.

Yeah, it sucks, all the crap that goes on in the world and that 40,000,000 people die every year of starvation, disease and malnutrition but those 40 million are here in large part because of technology and technology will help us keep them alive. And, don’t forget, technology makes us instantly aware of the earthquake in China and the tsunami in Indonesia that wipes out 100’s of thousands but also leads to incredibly quick global response that saves even more and eventually will provide the means to warn people that catastrophe is coming so they can avoid disaster all together.

Quit demonizing technology. It’s not the problem. As with most tools, including the crude stone axes we fashioned to hunt with but used, as well, to bonk our neighboring cave dwellers on the head. It’s the hands wielding the technology that creates the problems.

Yet technology, in many ways, has allowed us to give value to human life on a scale unprecedented in human history. Believe me, for most of history, most humanity was considered disposable and allowed to live at the pleasure of those who ruled. You think the millions who labored and slaved to build the great pyramids, the great wall, the colisseums, the cotton plantations of the south and cathedrals of latin america had job choice or satisfaction.

It was the technology of the printing press, the steam engine, the photograph, the telegraph, the vaccine that enabled us to become not just humans but humanitarians.

PS – as for GPS, I only wish my daughter had it when I had to talk her out of a bad neighborhood she’d wandered into 1200 miles away from me – thank goodness for technology; I was able to get online and guide her by cell phone (oops, more technology!) back to her car. Same deal when my son missed his train to Mt. Fuji in Japan, I was able to get online and find a place for him to stay and a train schedule to help him safely resume his journey.

Use technology to …
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I agree with much of what you say. I don’t text, own a blackberry, or even know how to use a GPS.

But…. I love pivot tables and I have spent a lot of time teaching clients how to use them. One client was able to replace a 20K a year employee with just one pivot table…..

Thanks for you insight….