What is the impact of automation on American culture and lifestyles?

Automation has made our lives easier, or has it? In many ways automation has made our lives easier. We can access information with ease, things that normally took time and labor can now be done for us, we can travel further, we can connect with each other instantly, we have more leisure time, and life is generally easier.

Americans have taken advantage of this automation perhaps more than anyone else. We have created a society of interconnected people with unlimited information and unlimited potential. Have we lost something in the process?

I can't help think of my grandparents. How they worked hard growing their food, how they relied on each other for living, how just having a radio or a book or a meal prepared for them was a highly valued prize. Have we lost our ability to communicate face to face, to appreciate hard labor and the results of that work? Is there a certain boredom that can come with too much leisure time and ease in life? Are we lazy?

With the good comes the bad I suppose. Knowledge, production, communication, and opportunities are advancing at exponential rates. The value and necessity of family, the honor of hard work, and the appreciation for all that we have may be the cost.