The world of ASAP – is it making the possible impossible?
Love them or hate them, the Black Friday sales are now a common feature of pre-Christmas shopping. Just a few mouse clicks and the bargain of your choice will speed its way to you.
There is no doubt that technology has dramatically changed our shopping habits over the last decade. But is a world where we can get so much ‘on demand’, changing more than just our shopping habits? Is being able to get things as soon as possible, creating a world where the possible becomes less possible. Or worse still, impossible?
Let’s begin with a journey back to school.
Why children are wired to ‘on demand’
As children go through the school curriculum today, they face an ever increasing range of demands from an early age. Homework, tests, mock exams, essays, course work. All of these have deadlines, often demanding ones. At a subconscious level, this can pile pressure on children to achieve a level of learning or exam grade by a set age (or potentially leave a child feeling ‘inferior’ to his/her peers).
But compare that with an oak tree. Plant an acorn and the sapling that grows from it has the freedom to develop at its own pace. There is no pressure to grow a certain number of branches or get to a certain height as soon as possible. It can only grow into a mighty and healthy oak and achieve real longevity, if its rate of growth is a natural one.
Sadly, children today are put through a system where they are exposed to increasingly unnatural expectations and they often escape the resulting pressures through addictive computer games, TV and social media/chat platforms (which ironically, are just a form of ‘on demand’ artificial instant gratification). Whilst there are some encouraging initiatives to address these problems, it is unfortunate that society still has a tendency to judge children and young adults by their school/university progress and exam grades, rather than their overall health and happiness.
Exams – the tip of the ASAP iceberg
Exams are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the demands that we place on each other. The pace of modern life often dictates that things have to be done ‘as soon as possible’. And one person’s ASAP then becomes another person’s ASAP. And so on, creating a whole string of urgent demands.
Whilst the constant spinning of school and university exam wheels prepare us to some extent for the urgent demands of the wheels of working life, if those ASAP wheels never stop, you can never assess the health of the tyres on those wheels. Moreover, once the tread on those tyres disappears, the consequences can be far reaching and deprive us both of our optimum health and of our ability to stop to consider more creative and effective ways of working, or to think rationally.
The real cost of ASAP
There is no doubt that new technologies are enabling things to be done more quickly and cheaply than using humans for the same tasks. However, there is a danger that the speed at which technologies work, create an unstoppable equivalent expectation and demand for humans to do things more quickly too.
Contrast that with something like the Slow Food movement. Founded in 1989, its mission is to prevent the disappearance of cultures and traditions and to counteract the impact of a faster life on the quality of food. By concentrating on a more patient, natural and sustainable way of growing food, quality and flavour always prevails.
However if as technology advances, humans start to judge their own capabilities against the speed of computers and constantly strive for the artificial speed of ASAP, as opposed to the centuries old traditions of stopping, thinking and learning, this could have profound consequences.
Not only would this way of working put the emphasis on speed over quality, accuracy and effectiveness, it would also provide less opportunity for businesses and their workforces to stop the wheels from spinning and losing all of their vital tread. A treadless tyre eventually renders itself useless. A business or society with treadless tyres may unfortunately, end up going the same way.
The new 2 year university course – a welcome cut in fees or a curse in waiting?
There have been recent proposals to allow UK universities to offer current 3 year degree courses over the space of 2 years instead. One of the arguments for providing these is to reduce tuition fees. Whilst it may be possible to provide some courses in 2 years, I can’t help feeling that this could just end up creating an ‘on demand’ education system, where students take the ASAP route to learning in an effort to reduce costs and their student debt. But in reality, it may just create the illusion that you can rush learning, which is then carried through to the workplace and ends up affecting productivity.
Faster is not always better
For the time being, it looks as though the world of ASAP is here to stay. Whilst it remains to be seen what impact technology will ultimately have on human expectations, I think we all need to become more aware of the potential impact that our increasingly ‘on-demand’ world could have.
Whilst the instant gratitude of getting our same day delivery through the post box makes us feel good, faster in all cases is not always better.
The human brain is a remarkable thing and is full of wonderful possibilities. But treat it like a hamster wheel and we risk those possibilities becoming less possible. Or worse still if the hamster wheel circles out of control, impossible.
