During the Industrial Revolution, 10-to-16-hour days were normal. Ford was the first company to experiment with an eight-hour day, and found its workers were more productive not only per hour, but overall. Within two years their net profit doubled.
If eight-hour days are better than 10-hour ones, could even shorter working hours be even better? Perhaps. For people over 40 research found that a 25-hour work week may be optimal for cognition, while when Sweden recently experimented with six-hour work days, it found that employees had better health and productivity.
This seems borne out by how people behave during the working day. One survey of almost 2,000 full-time office workers in the UK found that people were only productive for 2hours and 53 minutes out of an eight-hour day. The rest of the time was spent checking social media, reading the news, eating, having non-work-related chats with colleagues, and even searching for new jobs.
【正确答案】：参考译文:
在工业革命期间,每天10到16个小时的工作时间是正常情况。福特是首家尝试8小时工作制的公司,结果发现工人的计时效率和整体效率均得到了提高。两年之内福特的净利润翻了一番。
如果说8小时工作制比10小时工作制效率更高的话,那么工作时制再短些,效率会更高一些吗?这是有可能的。研究发现,对于40岁以上的人来说,一周工作25小时,脑力状态可能最佳。最近在瑞典试行了6小时工作制,结果发现员工的健康状态更好,生产效率更高。
人们在工作日的表现似乎进一步验证了上述发现。英国对近200名办公室全职员工进行调查,发现每天8小时中只有2小时53分钟工作效率高,其余时间则在浏览社交媒体,阅读新闻,吃东西,跟同事闲聊,甚至在寻找新工作。
