In the past, 30 or 40 years ago, people were saying: in the future, with all the new technologies, we will work 20 hours a week and all the rest of our time will be spend on leisure.

In fact, 30 or 40 years later, people are doing twice the work they were doing with the same time. The new technologies permit us to do much more things in much less time. Some people will tell me that it is not the case, but I would say that if it is not, at least the quality is greater.

The problem is that with these new technologies and these new working techniques follow new dynamics. Well, if we can do more in less time, then why the situation is not as expected decades ago? Because new geo-demo-politico-dynamics are emerging at the same time. The world is changing, everything goes faster and faster. New democracies are emerging, new populations want their part of the cake, information is democratizing with the evolution of the Internet, etc. We have to learn, to assess, and to act quickly to be able to cope with this new and constantly changing world.

It is in that vision that new products and technologies emerge every week. Most of these products try to help you to cope with these new dynamics. They try to automatically assess your environment, they try to help you to find relevant things in the constant incoming flow of information, and they try to make things easier for you: but the result seems that it will only help you to do much more things with the same time.

Is it our human nature to works endlessly? Is it our social structure that is pushing us in that direction? Is it the result of cultural interactions? Why do we use that saved time only to try to do more things?

Technorati: work | technologies | society | culture | future | leisure | time |