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 minds become numbed by the constant onslaught of useful and useless information. When the television set is switched on, all eyes are on the screen. Nobody wants to engage in other more creative activities like conversing, reading or simply sharing time together. Everybody sits down night after night getting their heads filled full of unnecessary things. Laziness reigns supreme. It is only when the TV sets breaks down or when there is a power failure that people realize they do not know what else to do.
Other inventions also contribute to our laziness. Fast foods mean that we do not bother to cook. Paper dishes and canned drinks mean that we do not even have to wash up after eating. We have washing machines, vacuum cleaners, elevators and other assorted gadgets to make out lives immeasurably easier and infinitely lazier.
There are signs that newer inventions will invade out lives soon to take over most of our daily chores. Already there are robots and electronic machines capable of doing a variety of tasks. Maybe the day will arrive when almost everything will be done for us and we will be left with a lot of free time to do the things we like to do, if there are things left to do.
