Idle or lazy?

There’s a thoughtful interview on 1800CEORead with Tom Hodgkinson, who publishes the U.K. journal The Idler, which publishes things in the vein of Hlade’s Law (if you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person; they will figure out an easier way to do it.)

My favorite piece of the exchange:

8cr: What role does technology play in idleness? Technology is supposed to make work and life easier for us. Is this really the case?

TH: I’m afraid not. It seems to create more work. Right from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, technology has promised to free us from toil. The steam-powered machines were supposed to do all the work. These days, digital technology is always telling us that it makes our lives easier. But does it? The Blackberry, for example, actually ties us to work 24/7. Ditto mobile phones. Email and computers suck time, and waste it. What happened to dancing, and singing? People have more fun in societies with less technology. Technology actually makes us dependent. When our broadband connection went down last month for a couple of days, I initially felt bereft. Then I read a book and picked up the phone and wrote some letters. That was much better. Labour-saving devices just make us try to cram more pointless activities into each day, rather doing the important thing, which is to enjoy our lives.

From the post Rethinking Work: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson