Three Theories for Why You Have No Time

One of the truisms of modern life is that nobody has any time. Everybody is busy, burned out, swamped, overwhelmed. So let’s try a simple thought experiment. Imagine that you came into possession of a magical new set of technologies that could automate or expedite every single part of your job. What would you do with the extra time? Maybe you’d pick up a hobby, or have more children, or learn to luxuriate in the additional leisure. But what if I told you that you wouldn’t do any of those things: You would just work the exact same amount of time as before. I can’t prove this, because I don’t know you. What I do know is that something remarkably similar to my hypothetical happened in the U.S. economy in the 20th century—not in factories, or in modern offices. But inside American homes. […]

Better technology means higher expectations—and higher expectations create more work. […] A lot of modern overwork is class and status maintenance—for this generation and the next. […] Technology only frees people from work if the boss—or the government, or the economic system—allows it. […]

Click here to view original web page at www.theatlantic.com