成人高等教育英語教材3 13

[00:00.00] UNIT 10 [00:28.92]Do They Save Time or Waste Time? [00:35.58]Integrated Skills DevelopmentPassage [00:44.64]Overload: More Time Is Less Time [00:50.81]So you think you have some of the good things in life. [00:58.28]You've got a video tape recorder [01:02.41]and a device that answers the phone for you. [01:07.06]And there's a gadget that turns off the lights when you've out. [01:12.62]How about the electric knife, the coffee maker, the ice maker? [01:18.89]Feel good about having all that stuff? [01:24.74]Or do you wonder whether the gadgets are running you instead of you them? [01:31.51]Americans apparently feel more hurried than ever these days. [01:38.46]Part of the reason is trying to keep up with the demands on their time to purchase, [01:46.53]store, service, repair, replace, [01:51.57]and protect all those "time saving" machines. [01:57.34]Add to them the problems of the extra car and the bigger house. [02:04.19]And there's the RV parked on the side lawn. [02:09.65]"Americans are eating up their leisure time [02:15.11]by overloading themselves with all kinds of gadgets..." [02:20.88]So says one expert in marketing. [02:26.16]The downfall of lots of homes is trying to keep up with all the things that go wrong. [02:34.91]There's the time spent to call repair people. [02:40.47]Next we must wait for them to show up. [02:45.22]Then there's the high hourly rates. [02:50.08]These may force many people into poor do-it-yourself jobs. [02:56.56]And costly tools often save little time [03:02.13]because of the small scale of home repairs. [03:07.19]Likewise, "labor-saving" appliances may lighten the house-work. [03:14.85]But they save little time. [03:19.21]Looking for the right electric knife or other new gadget [03:25.37]and getting it ready for use often can take more time than doing the job by hand. [03:32.92]Studies show we spend even more time on laundry than our grandparents did. [03:40.87]That's because we have more clothes and wash them more often. [03:47.42]Vacuum cleaners have raised standards of cleanliness. [03:53.77]But they tempt people to spend more time than with a broom or dust rag. [04:00.93]Cars are another time gobbler. [04:06.70]One expert says that tires and batteries last longer than they used to. [04:13.86]But U.S. cars are more prone to break down than they were. [04:20.39]Plus, there are more gadgets on them to go wrong. [04:26.03]The growing complexity of the car [04:30.11]most owners can no longer play with a screwdriver and wrench under the hood to fix things themselves. [04:38.86]Another problem we face more and more is dealing with computers in place of people. [04:47.11]Impersonal, cold, and error-prone machines are replacing clerks. [04:54.48]So to fix errors in bills and other problems with a product or service [05:01.64]often is a slow and maddening process. [05:07.10]The number of video games and other free time objects grows. [05:14.25]And the pressure of choice joins in. [05:19.61]Just to choose a free time activity from all the options taxes many people. [05:26.97]And as people crowd their lives with things that eat up too much of their time, [05:34.84]they come to feel that time is short. [05:39.51]They feel they are in danger of wasting it. [05:44.69]In the end, then, the possessions we consume end up consuming us.

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