X Is Not About Y: Technological Improvements and Cognitive-Physical Demands

Gram_Stone

(I, the author, no longer endorse this article. I find it naive in hindsight.)

Recall the following template:

In some cases, human beings have evolved in such fashion as to think that they are doing X for prosocial reason Y, but when human beings actually do X, other adaptations execute to promote self-benefiting consequence Z.

I work in the sign industry, and it's worth knowing that the sign industry mostly involves printing images on cast sheets of polyvinyl chloride with adhesive on the back of it. This allows you to stick a graphic just about anywhere. Good-old-fashioned signs are now just a special case of vinyl application where the surface is a quadrilateral.

But sometimes, it seems like you could cut out the vinyl installation process: if you just wanted a solid white sign with some black text, and the substrate you're going to apply the vinyl to is already white, wouldn't it be nice if you could just print some black text directly on the substrate?

That's what a flatbed printer is for, which you can imagine as your standard HP desktop printer at 100x magnification with an unusually long air hockey table where the paper slot should be.

Now, when the management was trying to get the workforce excited about this new technological artifact, they would say things like, "This new artifact will reduce the amount of time that you spend on vinyl application, leaving you less stressed and with a decreased workload."

But when we actually started to use the artifact, our jobs didn't actually become less stressful, and our workloads didn't actually decrease.

I mean, yeah, we could technically produce the same number of signs in less time, but a corollary of this statement is that we could produce more signs in the same amount of time, which is what we actually did.

So, I propose the subtemplate:

Employer proposes the introduction of technological artifact X, ostensibly to reduce physical or cognitive demands, but when the employer actually introduces technological artifact X, they realize it can be used to increase output and do that instead.

I wonder if anyone else has more examples?

(I, the author, no longer endorse this article. I find it naive in hindsight.)

Recall the following template:

In some cases, human beings have evolved in such fashion as to think that they are doing X for prosocial reason Y, but when human beings actually do X, other adaptations execute to promote self-benefiting consequence Z.

That's what a flatbed printer is for, which you can imagine as your standard HP desktop printer at 100x magnification with an unusually long air hockey table where the paper slot should be.

But when we actually started to use the artifact, our jobs didn't actually become less stressful, and our workloads didn't actually decrease.

So, I propose the subtemplate:

Employer proposes the introduction of technological artifact X, ostensibly to reduce physical or cognitive demands, but when the employer actually introduces technological artifact X, they realize it can be used to increase output and do that instead.

I wonder if anyone else has more examples?

'Twas ever thus. Bob at WidgetCorp says to his boss "You are demanding an unfair amount of labor from me for the wages you offer. You are demanding that I make 20 widgets a day. 15 widgets - or a raise - would be more fair." Management says "don't fret Bob! We've just installed the new Widgetron™. Making widgets will take half the time! By the way... we now need you to make 40 widgets a day. Hop to it."

I think you're giving the bosses here too much credit - or too little, I guess, depending on how you look at it, The main template describes how people may deceive themselves about their motivations for doing X. But surely in your example the employers never believed that reducing workload and stress were why they were getting the new big-ass printer? They got it because it was an investment in a new piece of equipment that would increase their profits by allowing their workers to make more signs in the same amount of time.

I mean, unless your employers are very different to mine, the "they realize" and "instead" parts of your subtemplate don't apply. There's no instead. They got the printer to maximize profits and then came up with something to tell their workforce about how it would reduce stress and workload. They lied - though the individuals involved might have described euphemistically it as "positive spin" or whatever.

Now, maybe your employers are nicer than mine - maybe your bosses only realized after they bought the BAP that they could use it to increase profits - but in my experience, top brass don't sign off on spending a bunch of money on new technology unless it has been thoroughly demonstrated that the new technology will help the bottom line. I would have said that usually it goes:

Employer realizes that technological artifact X can be used to increase productivity and decide to introduce it. In an attempt to maintain workplace morale as an added benefit, they bullshit their workers about how technological artifact X will reduce physical and/or cognitive demands.

Though this strategy can backfire when the workforce realize that T.A. X reduces physical demands while increasing cognitive demands, or reduces cognitive demands while increasing physical demands, or reduces neither, or worst of all, reduces the necessary workforce. Still, by the time they realize this it's often to late to do anything about it and T.A. X is the new normal.

Nobody ever tells Bob that his new target is, say, 35 widgets - an actual decrease in real workload - unless Bob has some leverage, whether it be labor laws or his union or his ability to take his skills and experience across the road to Widgets'R'Us.

Yeah, post hoc rationalization or deception makes more sense than what I said.