Is it possible not to waste time with technology ?
I received last year a computer. I am very happy with it, and find that, actually, I can make things faster. For example, using Microsoft World, Excel, Wikipedia, etc... my homeworks are done nicer and quicker since it. But, paradoxically, I noticed that it wasn't why I'm not stressed and in a hurry any more.
So I ask myself, does technology really save us time ?
The first thing is, how much time do I spend on computer ? I didn't have the answer, so I decided to look for averages. On average, computers are used 4 hours and 50 minutes a day. That is to say approximately 144 hours a month (6 whole days of computer). That is amazing ! Here we can see what people mostly do when there are on the Internet :
This is incredible how much time we can spend with useless things. I expected that most of my time spent on the Internet would be for Search and Emails but actually it isn't true. After rethinking it, it isn't so absurd. Am I really as efficient as I think I am ?
Well, who hasn't gotten lost on the Internet ? You can instantaneously have every information you want but sometimes you lost what you really wanted to know. For example last week when I was doing mathematics exercises, I forgot what the property of the angles of a triangle were, instead of looking for it in a big book, I just used the Internet. But I suddenly got a question of a matter of life and death. How do people whistle with their fingers ? And that's how I lost 30 minutes watching videos of people whistling.
In the end the Internet can make us waste lots of time.
But there are also others digital tools :
- GPS : instead of learning how to read maps, we only turn it on to see where to go
- Smartphone : to be able to answer our emails at any moment
- Definitively cars (if you consider them like technology) : our routes are widely shortened
- Phone : to speak to people instantaneously
etc.
Those technology save us time, we can now do things, that would before have taken us hours, almost in the blick of an eye.
Resulting, we are living in a society that doesn't like waiting. Before when a letter was sent, we had to wait days before receiving it, now with emails we can immediately receive them and it is demanded to be answered very fast.
I think technology does save us time, but it isn't used to entertainment, we use it to do more things, that's why we don't feel less busy. We are only accelerating our lives.
I don't know if you have the same problem of effectiveness as I have, but if you have solutions or method I would be very happy to hear them.