Are We Growing Impatient?
Technology has evolved at a great pace, in the last few years. It has simplified many complex or tedious tasks for one. Now, a task that would have taken forever to get done about a few years back, is available at our fingertips. Some of the examples can be banking, communicating, shopping, traveling & many others. These developments have reduced the duration of a task and made lives easier. So in a nutshell, these developments have brought a flurry of benefits into our lives.
But, we are missing one crucial drawback of the development of these tools among the number of benefits. These tools are simplifying our tasks and are reducing the time taken. But, they are also impacting our attention span and patience levels. For example, to carry out a financial transaction one would need an OTP. One would receive it instantly but sometimes due to some issue, it might get delayed. And some find this frustrating and would lose their cool, and that’s something one needs to be cautious of.
Let’s look at another example. In the recent past, short-video platforms such as Tiktok, Shorts, or Reels became very popular. They became a mode of sharing content not only for entertainment but also for education. But what it also led to was the impact on people’s attention to detail or attention span, on any aspect. Today, it seems like the growing need to compress the information on a screen or in a short video is leading to a drastic change in the way we comprehend content. For example, a 60-second video on the war in Ukraine will only share surface-level information but a descriptive article or a video will share a detailed analysis for one to form a well-informed opinion.
Let’s consider one more & final example. Today our lives are so caught up with work and dealing with traffic while commuting. One does not mind ordering in food through food delivery apps. There’s no denying that they have made our lives easier with quick delivery. But they have also created an expectation in our heads that we will have a solution to a problem delivered within minutes. Such expectations are not only making one impatient but also insensitive to the people around them. Do we really need food to be delivered in 10 minutes as some aggregators are advertising these days? Are we stopping to consider the real effects on very real people making these deliveries?
Using these tools and getting things done is not wrong. In fact, it makes our lives easier. But, one cannot let them overpower their behavioural responses. Because if they do, then one can get insensitive to the people working with or for them by expecting a solution within minutes or thinking that there will always be a readily available solution. One needs to be rational and letting these tools overpower one’s mind can make one impatient, which is one of the biggest deterrents to being rational. The greatest impact of the adverse effects of technology can be seen on teenagers and young adults who are yet to start their actual lives, so they need to understand the impact of these tools, direct or indirect.
However, the solution is not that difficult. I figured out that I can limit my time on content-creating apps such as Instagram or YouTube. My smartphone has a section called digital well-being that enables me to do so, you can look up apps. By doing so, I have reduced my daily time on such apps to only an hour a day which gives me more time to read about things, comprehend them, and form a well-informed opinion. While food delivery apps do not have an option of selecting a delivery time yet, grocery apps do. So, on most occasions, I plan my groceries well ahead and order at a pre-selected time frame and not through the 10 or 30 minute window, so that the people involved have enough time to carry out the task.
It is because of these practices that I can continue to be patient and concerned about the well-being of not just myself but also the people around me who are enabling a life, a life of comfort for all of us, delivery people being one example.
