WEEK 6:
MODERN INVESTION'S MAKING US LAZY ?

Are modern inventions making us lazy?

In more ways than not, I say yes to the above question.

The motorcar was invented some while back. Since then we have enjoyed an ease of traveling unequalled in history. We have also become immeasurably lazier. We drive the car everywhere, to work, to play, for a hundred miles, for a hundred metres. My brother who has a pot-belly does not in walking at all. It is always the car even to the corner grocery shop a stone’s throw away.

Many ‘modern’ people are like my brother, four wheels take over the job of two legs. Consequently, their whole physical condition suffer. They become overweight, under-exercised and prone to a multitude of ailments. The convenience of the motorcar has caused laziness which in turn caused physical deterioration.

Besides physical laziness, mental laziness can occur too. This happened to a friend of mine who works as a clerk in a school. Before the invention of electronic calculator, he had to do his accounts by making use of his brains alone. He could add, subtract, multiply, divide by simply using a pencil and a piece of paper. Then one day the headmaster gave him a calculator. He was delighted that he could perform all the calculating by simply pressing some keys. He did not even have to think. Thus his mental ability atrophied. He did not realized this until one day the calculator broke down. To his horror he discovered he has forgotten how to perform simple mathematical tasks. He was completely helpless and could not do his accounts until the headmaster got him another calculator. Such is the consequences of mental laziness. It took him only weeks with the calculator to almost forget it all.

To further worsen this physical and mental laziness is the television. Many people nowadays simply sit themselves right in front of their TV set for long hours every evening. These people inevitably become victims of the “idiot box”. Their bodies suffer from lack of exercise and their are too very busy to do work. Even if, the thing's is the really easy work to do..