> Travel agents in 1980 did less physical work than ER nurses do in 2015 whether measured in micro-tasks, macro-tasks, steps per day or anything else. My point

> Travel agents in 1980 did less physical work than ER nurses do in 2015 whether measured in micro-tasks, macro-tasks, steps per day or anything else. My point is that that is an assumption, if we choose to believe 1% of the last 30 years of technological innovation in convenience is real then the environments are a better explanation than changes to their inhabitants. A travel agent in 1980 may walk to work, clean the house without a vacuum, scrub the floor, lift and lug all sorts of heavy devices, reference books, carry and hang laundry, etc... Anyone today has higher odds of having to drive to work, having a roomba and easy surfaces at home, carrying a tablet or just a phone, having no steps in their living area and an elevator at work, not cooking at all by 1980's standards, having a private washing machine, being afraid to walk after dusk... Then for the 40 hours they actually spend at work, there are various equipment and practices to no longer lift patients frequently in the ER, etc. Many nurses are spending a lot of time reading things, comparing numbers, following (manual?) push carts and entering pill data. A few ER nurses may be doing more exercise now, but the average could look shockingly low to a travel agent from 1980. I would expect the articles premise if I ran the study. That makes me more suspicious of the outcome; we find what we expect to find when a study can't be perfectly controlled. Swapping the 1980s and 2010s environments is a perfect example of poor control.