2361 본문읽기 20
카테고리 없음2023. 6. 4. 12:01
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2361-35
Although technology has the potential to increase productivity, it can also have a negative impact on productivity. For example, in many office environments workers sit at desks with computers and have access to the internet. They are able to check their personal e-mails and use social media whenever they want to. This can stop them from doing their work and make them less productive. Introducing new technology can also have a negative impact on production when it causes a change to the production process or requires workers to learn a new system. Learning to use new technology can be time consuming and stressful for workers and this can cause a decline in productivity.
2361-36
Up until about 6,000 years ago, most people were farmers. Many lived in different places throughout the year, hunting for food or moving their livestock to areas with enough food. There was no need to tell the time because life depended on natural cycles, such as the changing seasons or sunrise and sunset. Gradually more people started to live in larger settlements, and some needed to tell the time. For example, priests wanted to know when to carry out religious ceremonies. This was when people first invented clocks ― devices that show, measure, and keep track of passing time. Clocks have been important ever since. Today, clocks are used for important things such as setting busy airport timetables ― if the time is incorrect, aeroplanes might crash into each other when taking off or landing!
2361-37
Managers are always looking for ways to increase productivity, which is the ratio of costs to output in production. Adam Smith, writing when the manufacturing industry was new, described a way that production could be made more efficient, known as the "division of labor." Making most manufactured goods involves several different processes using different skills. Smith's example was the manufacture of pins: the wire is straightened, sharpened, a head is put on, and then it is polished. One worker could do all these tasks, and make 20 pins in a day. But this work can be divided into its separate processes, with a number of workers each performing one task. Because each worker specializes in one job, he or she can work much faster without changing from one task to another. Now 10 workers can produce thousands of pins in a day ─ a huge increase in productivity from the 200 they would have produced before.
2361-38
Sometimes the pace of change is far slower. The face you saw reflected in your mirror this morning probably appeared no different from the face you saw the day before ― or a week or a month ago. Yet we know that the face that stares back at us from the glass is not the same, cannot be the same, as it was 10 minutes ago. The proof is in your photo album: Look at a photograph taken of yourself 5 or 10 years ago and you see clear differences between the face in the snapshot and the face in your mirror. If you lived in a world without mirrors for a year and then saw your reflection, you might be surprised by the change. After an interval of 10 years without seeing yourself, you might not at first recognize the person peering from the mirror. Even something as basic as our own face changes from moment to moment.
2361-39
According to educational psychologist Susan Engel, curiosity begins to decrease as young as four years old. By the time we are adults, we have fewer questions and more default settings. As Henry James put it, "Disinterested curiosity is past, the mental grooves and channels set." The decline in curiosity can be traced in the development of the brain through childhood. Though smaller than the adult brain, the infant brain contains millions more neural connections. The wiring, however, is a mess; the lines of communication between infant neurons are far less efficient than between those in the adult brain. The baby's perception of the world is consequently both intensely rich and wildly disordered. As children absorb more evidence from the world around them, certain possibilities become much more likely and more useful and harden into knowledge or beliefs. The neural pathways that enable those beliefs become faster and more automatic, while the ones that the child doesn't use regularly are pruned away.
Although technology has the potential to increase productivity, it can also have a negative impact on productivity. For example, in many office environments workers sit at desks with computers and have access to the internet. They are able to check their personal e-mails and use social media whenever they want to. This can stop them from doing their work and make them less productive. Introducing new technology can also have a negative impact on production when it causes a change to the production process or requires workers to learn a new system. Learning to use new technology can be time consuming and stressful for workers and this can cause a decline in productivity.
2361-36
Up until about 6,000 years ago, most people were farmers. Many lived in different places throughout the year, hunting for food or moving their livestock to areas with enough food. There was no need to tell the time because life depended on natural cycles, such as the changing seasons or sunrise and sunset. Gradually more people started to live in larger settlements, and some needed to tell the time. For example, priests wanted to know when to carry out religious ceremonies. This was when people first invented clocks ― devices that show, measure, and keep track of passing time. Clocks have been important ever since. Today, clocks are used for important things such as setting busy airport timetables ― if the time is incorrect, aeroplanes might crash into each other when taking off or landing!
2361-37
Managers are always looking for ways to increase productivity, which is the ratio of costs to output in production. Adam Smith, writing when the manufacturing industry was new, described a way that production could be made more efficient, known as the "division of labor." Making most manufactured goods involves several different processes using different skills. Smith's example was the manufacture of pins: the wire is straightened, sharpened, a head is put on, and then it is polished. One worker could do all these tasks, and make 20 pins in a day. But this work can be divided into its separate processes, with a number of workers each performing one task. Because each worker specializes in one job, he or she can work much faster without changing from one task to another. Now 10 workers can produce thousands of pins in a day ─ a huge increase in productivity from the 200 they would have produced before.
2361-38
Sometimes the pace of change is far slower. The face you saw reflected in your mirror this morning probably appeared no different from the face you saw the day before ― or a week or a month ago. Yet we know that the face that stares back at us from the glass is not the same, cannot be the same, as it was 10 minutes ago. The proof is in your photo album: Look at a photograph taken of yourself 5 or 10 years ago and you see clear differences between the face in the snapshot and the face in your mirror. If you lived in a world without mirrors for a year and then saw your reflection, you might be surprised by the change. After an interval of 10 years without seeing yourself, you might not at first recognize the person peering from the mirror. Even something as basic as our own face changes from moment to moment.
2361-39
According to educational psychologist Susan Engel, curiosity begins to decrease as young as four years old. By the time we are adults, we have fewer questions and more default settings. As Henry James put it, "Disinterested curiosity is past, the mental grooves and channels set." The decline in curiosity can be traced in the development of the brain through childhood. Though smaller than the adult brain, the infant brain contains millions more neural connections. The wiring, however, is a mess; the lines of communication between infant neurons are far less efficient than between those in the adult brain. The baby's perception of the world is consequently both intensely rich and wildly disordered. As children absorb more evidence from the world around them, certain possibilities become much more likely and more useful and harden into knowledge or beliefs. The neural pathways that enable those beliefs become faster and more automatic, while the ones that the child doesn't use regularly are pruned away.
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