I had a similar reaction re: professors. Sure, it takes the same amount of time to mark an essay. But it takes much less time to score exams and to administer

I had a similar reaction re: professors. Sure, it takes the same amount of time to mark an essay. But it takes much less time to score exams and to administer them. Writing research papers takes much, much, much less time because of word processors, online submission systems, copyediting changes, and so forth. A lot of research itself takes less time to do because of statistical analysis libraries, computerized administration and recruitment, etc etc etc This is actually something I've heard older, very professors lament -- some of them have claimed that when, say, papers took longer to produce, you had more time to think when things were being mailed back and forth, and there wasn't so much of a factory approach to paper writing where they were treated as widgets. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this necessarily but I'm really skeptical of claims that productivity hasn't risen in certain fields. Now you can get into a discussion of "real" versus "false" productivity gains but that's a little different.