To advance technologically or not?

When I was young (and I realize that this will date me in the eyes of the young) my mother used to have an old (it was realitively new to her) Stampco washing machine. All this machine did was 'wash' as in agitate the clothes; it had to be filled from the tap, although I think it did have a pump for emptying the water. It also had a 'ringer' through which every item of clothing or sheets or towels had to be fed (by hand) into a rinsing trough and then you could swing the 'ringer' around so that it was positioned between the two rinsing troughs and feed all the articles through the ringer a second time for the final rinse. The ringer was swung a third time so that the clothes could be rung a third time into the clothes basket to be taken out to the line to dry. This process was repeated several times, washing all the cleanest items first, finishing with heavily soiled work clothes last, using the same water with a top up with hotter water at the end. My mother persevered with this method of washing for some years after more modern automatic machines came on the market because, being in the country on tank saved water, she did not think that we would have enough water to run an automatic machine. I marvell at her wisdom. While she would put one day aside to get through this task the rest of the week was totally free from laundry jobs.
Today I can shove clothes in the washing machine every morning and have them ready to hang out before I go to work. They are there waiting for me at the end of the day (whether I like it or not!) to bring in and put away. (I refuse to use a drier, some of my mother's perseverance there I suspect!) I also live in the country, so to accommodate the extra water usage we put in an extra water tank but some summers we still come pretty close to running out of water.
While the technology of washing machines has advanced tenfold to make life easier or allow more time for leisure, it's my opinion that technological advances do not allow more leisure time but only speed up activity so that you do more because you can. Essentially technological advancements in many fields only change the workflow not necessarily the work load.
Phine.