Is the need for speed undermining our day to day lives? I am not talking about fast cars that are driven mainly for the thrill rather than to constantly get to a destination quicker than the average National Express coach. I am talking about the 24/7 working/living environment many people have seemingly built for themselves. We expect answers to text messages immediately, email responses quickly and goods delivered the next day. We may not realise it, but perhaps we can live without such demands. Not so long ago, no one around the dinner table would interrupt the meal to read a text message (and respond), or step out of the room to answer their mobile. We wouldn’t leave the sitting room in the evening to go and respond to emails. We wouldn’t sit on trains and in coffee shops dealing with work matters that could probably wait until we arrived at the office. Ordering goods for delivery to home had a 28 day waiting period. We accepted that without question and I cannot think of any time it would have been a disaster, but now we expect it the next day, or certainly within a couple of days. Have we made a rod for our own backs? When I first started work, we had typewriters and letters were sent, not expected to be replied to immediately, but more often than not had a 2 week time scale before I would chase for a response. More urgent matters would be dealt with via a telephone call. Urgent overseas matters would be dealt with by using the telex machine. I can’t remember people working the long hours they do now, or taking work home to do at weekends. When I left the office at 5pm I wasn’t contacted to deal with things – nothing was that urgent. And perhaps most of the things we think are urgent now, really aren’t. I am not saying that the progresses made in technology and communications are not good, but has it made us more stressed and in the long run, less effective? Working for myself, I can go days without actually speaking to anyone other than my family, but still run a very successful business with happy clients. The availability of email and texting means I have clients I never physically speak to after my initial consultation with them. It works well and I get more work done by avoiding lengthy, time wasting telephone chats, but is it good for my own wellbeing? We all get angry at every day hold ups like the traffic in town and the queues at the tills. Does it really matter that these hold ups are going to cost us a few minutes of our valuable time? You know, that valuable time that we would probably waste anyway on Facebook or watching Jeremy Kyle. Sometimes I sit and watch people whilst enjoying a coffee break. It seems that people still love to sit and chat, often about nonsense, but more often than not, those people are laughing and enjoying their time. It’s always good to see a group of people not letting their phones be a part of the conversation too. But from observation, this is not common. More often than not people are responding to text message the second they are received, answering calls whilst a friend is speaking and generally still letting work and life matters get in the way of a bit of chill out time. Why do we do this to ourselves? I am as bad as the next person for letting these things control my life, but I have found myself raising the need for speed question time and again.
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 15:34:07 +0000
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