Cowan’s “More Work for Mothers” is a compelling piece about the state and direction and effect of industrialization in the home and the resulting amount of work due to the constant and lightning fast updating of technology. And although their opinions can be compelling to think about I can’t help but to feel as though the constant updating of technology has been nothing but a net gain in productivity for everyone.
Sure, there is “more” expected of people due to the increased availability and convenience provided by technological advancement, but overall the direction we’re headed is clear. People are able to have more and more free time because of the technology we have, and the free time we have is more far-reaching because of the same exact thing. It is because of twitter, youtube, television, even the laundry machines, and the like that we are allowed such productive free time. Due to twitter I am able to find out—idly, through no particular searching of my own—what my friends and favorite celebrities did today. Because of youtube, in a free moment, I am able to find out how to cook an entire meal.
The laundry machines, we talked about in class, have since become providers of free time, as opposed to providers of information—as are the things I have talked about previously. Laundry machines don’t tell us new things, but they allow us time to learn and experience. Forty-five minutes on a cell phone can give you immeasurable amounts of data compared to a book. It is due to the invention and combination of these two pieces of technology that we are able to have such efficient times of day even though we are cleaning our clothes.
There are arguments to be made about status symbols, and the messages one sends out when you don’t comply to the new rules established by the new pieces of technology, but in the long run I can’t see efficient technology as anything but a net positive for society as a whole.
Yih-heng Wang says
I completely agree with your post and it was enjoyable to read someone who shares similar views as mine in regards to this topic. I think the point you brought up that these new technologies create time for us to do other things, how we choose to use this time is entirely up to us (putting aside any unnoticed influences which is another topic of its own). I think this free time is power and like you put it, time for us to learn new things and develop new experiences. It’s important to remember that we are where we are today because at some point in the past the very same “technology” that Cowan feels to be in a sense threatening, that same technology brought people to where they were 20, 50, 100, 1000 years ago. People will experience change no matter what and technology guides us towards us. HOW we embrace new technologies and how we use the new knowledge we gain is up to us. I agree at the end of the day, we should be held responsible to how we consume and how we live our lives, technology is there for our benefit, not as an obstacle.