Let me give few scenarios and make you readers relate to it…the first one..say you are in front of an ATM Machine and there a queue, to make matters worse, the person inside its taking a ‘bit’ longer to come out! How would that feel? Well the second one… you are trying call your friend and she doesn’t respond after 2 trials and yet you try 1 more time…how would that make you feel? And the last one, You have purchased some item or groceries from a mall and then we you just about pay at the counter you find a queue…I’m sure that each one of must have undergone this experience and the feelings that erupt of these situations can named as frustration, angst, paranoia, tense, jittery etc. and if we probably would like sum these up and give it a name then will be of course called as IMPATIENCE! And I am very much sure that each one of us knows about its relevance in today’s world.
Now let me give you a connection to this very phenomenon named impatience, by bringing in internet, cell phones, video conferencing etc. a.k.a. Technology. And this will be the theme for my blog. And trust me each one us will be a part of this blog because this is not just about my experience but also about all you readers too. Internet is celebrating its silver jubilee and sooner will cell phone. These two technologies changed the face of human civilization. Technology indeed did shrink the world, well almost. The best examples can be Facebooks, orkuts etc. This has bought countries as well the cultures to proximity and made them conspicuous, even the recent uprising in West Asia, which includes the historic toppling of Egyptian government, is finest examples of these very internet applications (facebook). Never was knowledge so lucid information so accessible and people so near and approachable. I still remember, when I was doing MBA, my professor once quoted an example of how video conferencing is slowly competing with airlines, in a way that people prefer to sit in their home locations and discuss rather than travel and waste both time and money...isn’t this interesting.
However, this not what I am here to discuss, the major observation that has been brought to notice is about growing impatience among people recently for even petty things. And researchers attribute this to fast and accessible world, the world driven completely by technology, ready-to-serve food, internet, cell phones et al. as mentioned earlier no doubt they changed our lives for better, but one cannot ignore other side of the coin right? All these has also lead to attention deficiency, impulsiveness and impatience, no wonder there are at least 5 incidences of Road rage which ends tragically! A point to ponder. “It is definitely a cause of worry,” says psychologist Dr Kalpna Menon, “spending a lot of time with our devices suggests that excessive dependence on cellphones and the Internet is akin to an addiction, which is fast becoming a modern day psychological disorder.” Similar concern is expressed by Dr. Elias Aboujaoude, who happens to be the Director of Impulse Control Clinic at Stanford. He interestingly has stated in his article that life nowadays has started resembling a chat room and the virtual dependence is causing more and more people to become cognitive in their lifestyle. Nicholas Carr author of a new book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains smartly expressed in his Official blog that social and familial responsibilities, work and other pressures influence our use of technology. “The deeper a technology is woven into the patterns of everyday life, the lesser is the choice we have about whether and how we use that technology,” writes Carr on his blog. Reading these makes us feel that as if we have been taken over by machines as they show in Terminator. A recent British has proved the same. British people seem to be becoming increasingly impatient - On average they will lose their patience after 8 minutes and 22 seconds.
If a website takes more than 1 minute to load, 70 percent of people will become impatient.
The maximum average time for people to wait for a reply after making a call is 5 minutes and 4 seconds.
In addition, the survey also shows that the youth lose their patience earlier than the elderly. One third of the respondents aged between 18 and 24 said that they will start getting very annoyed when refreshing a webpage takes more than 10 seconds.
Related to the same, there are more things that need attention and it is about this virtual world that we have created for ourselves, especially games like Second Life and various chat rooms have given a new meaning to anonymity, where one can indulge in his fantasies and feed his alter ego. Many psychologists feels that this in long run is very detrimental as the person loses touch with reality and absorbs himself in something which is not real. To add further, now with all these, a person has very less or time for his family and friends, which leads to further isolation and imbalance on personal front. No wonder, these was study done which proved direct correlation between internet and divorces, the details and reasons of course are more than one and not purely related to just internet but interwoven in it.
It is however quite interesting because a decade ago, we had trunk calls, we had money orders which used to take 2-3 days, same goes for parcels and letters by post, and even home delivery was very prevalent, travelling also took time, all these eventually made people more tolerant and patient. Now, with internet and other applications of technology, the situation has totally changed, where in even a pizza that you order is guaranteed to be in your hands fresh and hot in just 30 minutes! what more shall I say, no wonder we are expecting more in shorter period…and these are the recipe for umm well ‘Impatience et al’. If you have some experiences, please do share with me.
Ref: People Daily.com
NY Times
Indian Express
