Internet or washing machine? Choose the latter anyday | AllV

1. Internet or washing machine? Choose the latter anyday Micron Associates PRcode 34931845011 MA sequence

2. At a recent family dinner I sat through two younger cousins talking about the love of their lives: their latest mobile phones. The glow and the happiness on their faces was very visible, even though they were at the opposite ends of the spectrum. One had bought the latest version of Samsung Galaxy and the other had bought the latest version of the Apple iPhone. We live in an era where internet-led technology plays a great role in the lives of people. It also gives a lot of meaning to their lives, as is the case with my cousins. Every new gadget, be it the latest mobile phone or the latest tablet, gives us a feeling of progress. And we regard these recent changes as revolutionary. http://www.firstpost.com/economy/internet-or-washing-machine-choose-the-latter-anyday-814601.html

3. But do they really make a difference? Of course, they do. It would be foolish to say they don’t. So let me reword the question. Does the progress in information and communications technology, almost all of which use the internet, really make as much difference as, let’s say, the availability of running water or the invention of the washing machine and other household appliances? Robert Gordon, an American economist, has this to say in a research paper titled: “Is US Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds. (You can read the research paper here). http://www.firstpost.com/economy/internet-or-washing-machine-choose-the-latter-anyday-814601.html

4. He writes: “The biggest inconvenience (in the past) was the lack of running water. Every drop of water for laundry, cooking, and indoor chamber pots had to be hauled in by the housewife, and wastewater hauled out. The average North Carolina (an American state) housewife in 1885 had to walk 148 miles per year while carrying 35 tons of water. Coal or wood for open-hearth fires had to be carried in and ashes had to be collected and carried out. There was no more important event that liberated women than the invention of running water and indoor plumbing, which happened in urban America between 1890 and 1930.” Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang makes a similar point in his brilliant book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism: “The internet revolution has (at least as yet) not been as important as the washing machine and other household appliances, which, by vastly reducing the amount of work needed for household chores, allowed women to enter the labour market.” http://www.firstpost.com/economy/internet-or-washing-machine-choose-the-latter-anyday-814601.html

5. Running water, washing machines and other household appliances helped women save time on the daily chores and thus enter the job market. As Chang points out, “Washing machines have saved mountains of time. The data are not easy to come by, but a mid-1940s study by the US Rural Electrification Authority reports that, with the introduction of the electric washing machine and electric iron, the time required for washing 38 lb of laundry was reduced by a factor of nearly six (from 4 hours to 41 minutes) and the time taken to iron it by a factor of more than 2.5 (from 4.5 hours to 1.75 hours). Piped water has meant that women do not have to spend hours fetching water (for which, according to the United Nations Development Program, up to two hours per day are spent in some developing countries). Gas/electric kitchen stoves…have vastly reduced the time needed for collecting firewood, making fires, keeping the fires alive, and cleaning after them for heating and cooking purposes.” http://www.firstpost.com/economy/internet-or-washing-machine-choose-the-latter-anyday-814601.html

6.  The impact these developments have had on the way we live has been really fundamental. The same does not stand true for the internet. At least, not as yet. As Chang explains, “To be sure, for some, the internet has profoundly changed the way in which we work… However, for many other people, the internet has not had much impact on productivity. Studies have struggled to find the positive impact of the internet on overall productivity — as Robert Solow, the Nobel laureate economist, put it, ‘the evidence is everywhere but in the numbers’.” Many of us maybe spending more and more time on the internet, but that doesn’t mean it has had an impact on economic productivity and economic growth and in turn made our lives ‘really’ better. http://www.firstpost.com/economy/internet-or-washing-machine-choose-the-latter-anyday-814601.html