The ‘acceleration’ of our lives is driven by the increasing speed of transportation and information communications (Virilio and Parent 1996), including ‘always on, anywhere’ mobile data and wi-fi, ecommerce and real time online social networks. The effects of these permeate our society. Wajcman (2008: 59) describes “time-space compression” experienced by citizens as a constant theme of everyday life in modern societies. She cites Giddens (1990) and Beck (2000) who claim our era is experiencing rapid increases in the rates of social and cultural change. The effects of ‘faster lives’ (Gleick 1999) include:
- increasingly transient social bonds (Lash 2002);
- hyperreality (consumers increasingly living their lives online, for example in social networks);
- visions of “cyborgian de-humanisation” and telecommercial hypermanic cultures (Land 1995: 131);
- increased velocity of ideas (Florida 2002) within dense clusters of creative practitioners;
- increasingly cursory analytical practices (Gleick 1999); and
- the pervasive sense that to be busy is to be important.
Lash claims this leaves “little time for creative action” (in Wajcman 2008: 60) amongst the time poor whose minds are increasing distracted and cluttered. This notion is supported by Saul Bellow who wrote: “I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. … with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction” (Singh 1993: 16).
‘Time space compression’ effects include increasingly distracted consumers with shorter attention spans. In social terms, the attention economy relates to how much time a person dedicates to long term interactions, and a downside of this phenomenon is ‘social interaction overload’, where people become overwhelmed with the level of effort required to manage their social interactions. Social overload may have severe repercussions. Psychological responses to overstimulation (Evans and Cohen 1987) and cognitive overload (Baum and Paulus 1987) include: anxiety, a perceived lack of privacy, loss of control, detachment, negative social attitudes, social withdrawal and relationship problems (McCarthy and Saegert 1978; Fleming, Baum & Weiss 1987; Jain 1987; Baum and Paulus 1987). Sharp (2009) blames parental ‘busy-ness’ for a trend of increased stress and unhappiness levels in children and believes a common solution is for parents to buy them more distractions (computer games and gadgets), when he claims what they really need is more rest, or space.
A consequence of the trend to pervasive multitasking and exposure to constant stimulus is “the boredom of being excited all the time” (Gleick 1999: 177) and an “unbearable state of distraction,” of “pointless but intense excitement” (Bellow 1989: 59-60). Every day advertisers aim to capture consumer attention in order to sell products and services. This consumerism becomes another trap of “heavenly bills” (Eagles 1976), particularly in inner urban areas where there is a higher density, and perhaps more temptations to spend outside the home.
Networking online highlights other dangers of an increasing trend towards social overload. Futurescape, a company that assesses future scenarios, consider key industries in ten to twenty years may include memory augmentation surgeons, virtual clutter organisers, social workers for those “traumatised or marginalised by social networking” and personal brand managers (Futurescape 2009: points 5,17,19). Facebook, Twitter and other social network sites risk “infantilising the mind” according to a neuroscientist, Lady Greenfield (Mitchum 2009). Greenfield’s extreme, alarmist scenario suggests users of these sites may be uploading photos and content as a form of self-promotion, seeking feedback to reassure their egos. This may become an addiction to the point of living their lives in a self constructed ‘hyper-reality’ resulting in an unreal and ‘shaky’ sense of identity based upon sensationalism. A related emerging phenomenon is ‘social vampirism’. A ‘social vampire’ is described in the Urban Dictionary as someone who 'attaches' to another person, showing affection and attention until they feel satisfied that the person likes them in return. When that happens, the person inexplicably moves on to the next 'target' and begins the cycle all over, leaving the last 'victim' confused and hurt. Social vampires allegedly crave attention and feel they're not popular enough and social vampirism is their defensive mechanism against feelings of loneliness and being ignored (‘I Am Jack's User ID’ and ‘Stuju’ 2005).
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