6. Reading Skills Comprehension: Basic use of Technology

Basic use of Technology

Read the following passage carefully.

As civilisation proceeds in the direction of technology, it passes the point of supplying all the basic essentials of life-food, shelter, clothes and warmth. Then we are faced with a choice between using technology to provide and fulfil needs which have hitherto been regarded as unnecessary or, on the other hand, using technology to reduce the number of hours of work which a man must do in order to earn a given standard of living. In other words, we either raise our standard of living above that necessary for comfort and happiness or we leave it at this level and work shorter hours. I shall take it as axiomatic that mankind has, by that time, choose the latter alternative. Men will be working shorter and shorter hours in their paid employment. It follows that the housewife will also expect to be able to have more leisure in her life without lowering her standard of living. It also follows that human domestic servants will have completely ceased to exist. Yet the great majority of the housewives will wish to be relieved completely from the routine operations of the home such as scrubbing the floors or the bath or the cooker or washing the clothes or washing up, or dusting or sweeping, or making beds.

By far the most logical step to relieve the housewife of routine is to provide a robot slave which can be trained to the requirements of a particular home and can be programmed to carry out half a dozen or more standard operations (for example, scrubbing, sweeping and dusting, washing up, laying tables, making beds when so switched by the housewife. It will be a machine having no more emotions than a car, but having a memory for instructions and a limited degree of instructed or built-in adaptability according to the positions in which it finds various types of objects. It will operate other than more specialised machines, for example, the vacuum cleaner or clothes washing machine.

Questions:

Answer the following questions.

1. What is the first basic use of technology?

2. How will women benefit from technology?

3. When will domestic servants disappear?

4. What are the advantages of using robots?

5. How do robots work?

6. What is the added function of a robot?

7. Who would you choose between a domestic servant and a robot slave?

8. What are your views regarding technology and leisure in our life?

Answers :

1. The first basic use of technology is to provide comfort and case by fulfilling basic needs.