Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Technology Gives, Technology Takes

For any one following Facebook updates, this is the season for college graduations and college visits for those high school juniors. High school seniors should have made their decision by now and are getting ready to graduate in a couple of weeks.

Where one goes to further their education is just one piece in the puzzle. What courses or line of study one choses helps to determine what they will be capable of doing.

NPR has published a set of four interactive graphs to show the changes in occupations over the past 150 years and in particular how those changes were due to machines.

For hundreds of years, people have been talking about machines taking jobs from people. Less often discussed: machines creating new jobs. 
In the first part of the 20th century, agricultural technology — the tractor, chemical fertilizers — meant a single farmer could suddenly grow much more food. So we didn't need as many farmers. Technology destroyed a huge number of farming jobs.

screen image of one of the interactive graphs
screen image of one of the interactive graphs
 Follow the link to read the full article and use the interactive graphs


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