Why is everyone so busy? | Economist | December 2014
THE predictions sounded like promises: in the future, working hours
would be short and vacations long. “Our grandchildren”, reckoned John
Maynard Keynes in 1930, would work around “three hours a day”—and
probably only by choice. Economic progress and technological advances
had already shrunk working hours considerably by his day, and there was
no reason to believe this trend would not continue. Whizzy cars and ever
more time-saving tools and appliances guaranteed more speed and less
drudgery in all parts of life. Social psychologists began to fret:
whatever would people do with all their free time?