Prompt: Technological advancement should be to increase people's efficiency so that they have more leisure time.

What’s the most controversial is a crucial assumption behind the prompt, that is, increased efficiency will generate more leisure time. This statement might appear reasonable at first glance. Even since when I was little, I was told that when workload is constant, as efficiency improves, work time reduces, and consequently, leisure time increases. For example, if I can finish my homework faster than my classmates, then I will have more time playing DOTA or Civilization. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? However, comparing today with, say, 50 years ago, we shall easily see that while today’s efficiency has vastly escalated, our free time has somehow diminished. How did that happen? The fundamental problem is that there is little reason to assume a constant workload. In reality, as technology boosts work efficiency, we are witnessing, ironically, a general growth in overall workload in our society, a growth which is even faster than that in efficiency, and which in turn results in increased work time, reducing the already limited leisure time. The is because the improved efficiency from boosted technology does not just affect one particular individual or business, but affects the entire society. What determines whether an individual or a business survives or not within fierce competition is its relative competitiveness, rather than its absolute skill or ability. Unfortunately, when every participant’s efficiency increases, then efficiency itself offers no competitive advantage at all, and consequently they can only outcompete their competitors by working longer and producing more. This is the ultimate logic underlying the fierce and vicious competition in today’s market world. Based on these analyses, I believe that notion behind the prompt regarding the connection between efficiency and leisure is far from the reality.