Of all things technology related, the thing of interest to me this week is the whole notion of time, and the paradox of timesavers becoming timetakers (or is it just that we try to insert that many more “to do’s” into everyday?). Or is it that our sense of time has warped? A few more than a hundred years ago, it was nothing for a missive to take weeks to get from sender to recipient – all communication took time, even telegraphed. Now I have a conniption if it takes ten seconds for the barcode scan to go through checking out books to a patron….sigh.
I think also, though, that technologically completed tasks – proper check-offs from the to do list – somehow don’t bear the same sense of accomplishment that the sight of a newly-emptied book cart, or straighted Fiction stacks, or a pile of catalogued and processed books brings to me.
Is it just me, or does technology not save as much time as we’d hoped it would? Do emails eat up far more time than intended? Snags in online projects drag them out far beyond the allotted few minutes? Do we accomplish more in less, or simply less?
This seems like such a downer post – I should have written about something fun, like craigslist or ebay or flickr again…. :0)
I think you’re probably right that technology doesn’t save time, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For instance, MARC and lazer labels makes it possible for that pile of books that I can process in one day so much bigger, and I like that. But I also like that I still have to spend the time affixing the labels and displaying new books. I don’t know, I guess it’s not really about how much time we spend, but how we spend the available time. I must spend at least an hour or two over the course of a day checking my feed reader and email, but I like it. I can see how that would seem like a waste of time to folks, but I learn so much because I *can* learn that way. Technology really makes you have to assess how you prefer to spend time and how you best learn.
Huh….I lost the point there initially. Here it is…MARC and laser printers take time from one area so I can use that time in some other way. I think it’s not really about saving time as much as it is about re-appropriating time. There.
I like your perspective…. :0) I think the real problem is my guilt complex in that checking the feed readers and working online somehow doesn’t feel like REAL work, so I want to take as little time doing it as possible because I feel badly taking ANY time for it….Which is, admittedly, a bit foolish.
And thanks for all your other replies – I haven’t gotten to “Candyfreak” yet, but it’s top on the list. :0)