The hidden cost of Gangnam Style(economist.com)
economist.com
The hidden cost of Gangnam Style
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2014/06/daily-chart-1?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/the_hidden_cost_of_gangnam_style
10 comments
Or presumably, building Chartres Cathedral?
The article perpetrates The myth of any working hour is equal. Actually its energy which limits the amount of work person does, and if we add more hours the same amount of work gets done spread on more hours, of course there are exceptions to this rule like where you just sit and wait and do some standard routine when someone comes like selling tickets when number of customers is low enough that your working speed doesn't matter.
The reason we have 40 hour workweek is that industrialists realized it maximizes the productivity of physical labor, and its studied quite through out. In mental labor the studies say that maximizing long term productivity is even lower than that. You get more done for a week if you add additional hours for a week, however within week or two your productivity dips so that you produce LESS than when you were working 40 hour week. If we add commute to 40 hour workweek, and count the stuff people must do to keep their self in working condition and not too smelly, there is less than 40 hours of leisure time. I just did Excel out of what I want to do in a week and what I MUST do (like eat, sleep...) Then end result was 187 hours a week, unfortunately for me there is only 168 hours in a week.
The reason we have 40 hour workweek is that industrialists realized it maximizes the productivity of physical labor, and its studied quite through out. In mental labor the studies say that maximizing long term productivity is even lower than that. You get more done for a week if you add additional hours for a week, however within week or two your productivity dips so that you produce LESS than when you were working 40 hour week. If we add commute to 40 hour workweek, and count the stuff people must do to keep their self in working condition and not too smelly, there is less than 40 hours of leisure time. I just did Excel out of what I want to do in a week and what I MUST do (like eat, sleep...) Then end result was 187 hours a week, unfortunately for me there is only 168 hours in a week.
If only we could each contribute 4 minutes of our time towards building the Great Pyramids of Giza.
Surely the Economist writers, of all people, can imagine that being entertained is worth something, and might possibly be worth the opportunity cost of the time people spend on entertainment. After all, by watching the video people have revealed their preference for spending their time this way.
How insightful you are!
This is the dumbest article I've read in a long time.
Reminds me of a Chrome extension I wrote a couple months back to figure out if the total viewing duration was more than 1 human life and show that instead of the play count: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/you-consumed/lpnkd...
What a stupid article. If a project is going to take 1 person 40 hours to complete, that doesn't mean it would take 40 people 1 hour to complete. And... I often listen to music via YouTube while I work. I'm sure several of those views were from me while I was working.
This assumes people would have been doing these things instead of watching the video.
This article gives an interesting perspective of how many man-hours were lost, but that doesn't mean those man-hours would have been put into something constructive instead.
This article gives an interesting perspective of how many man-hours were lost, but that doesn't mean those man-hours would have been put into something constructive instead.
This assumes people watched the video again and again.
In reality most people watched it a few times, then only listened to the music, doing something else meanwhile.
How much of a Giza pyramid could have been built instead of writing this article ?
Edit: typo
How much of a Giza pyramid could have been built instead of writing this article ?
Edit: typo
If work would only scale like that my web app would be done in under 4 minutes.
Why waste your life in front of a TV screen, when you could be pushing rocks into a big pile?