But Greenberg assumes that time lost doing certain tasks is automatically wasted time. In so doing, he neglects the way in which time-saving devices may allow us to accomplish greater tasks. Culture arose only when our remote ancestors didn't have to expend all their daily energy chasing down edible animals and foraging for roots and berries. More recently, literacy has risen steadily as people have had more time to read. Some labor-saving devices that Greenberg deplores simply enable us to accomplish other work.
Calculators help engineers work.
Automatic transmission makes it marginally easier for workaholics to multitask as they drive, working up a deal or arranging a meeting via cell phone, a fine device that saves us the trouble of all living in the same place. Computers and word processors save us the trouble of writing twice, once long hand, once feeding single sheets of paper into a typewriter and wasting many sheets in typos that correction tape can't overcome. Because it is easier to rearrange paragraphs with a word processor, we become more willing to fix what we might have let stand in typewriter days. As for the claim that spell check and grammar check keeps writers from learning, consider the benefits of having our typos underlined in red and our questionable syntax marked in green. If our oral discourse were so marked, we might become a more articulate culture.