Instant Gratification = Problem

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Age of Great Convenience: Boon or Bane?
Sometime back, I come to realize that I have become very impatient with friends when I sms them and do not get a response back within minutes of sending out the message. Is this true for you too? This has caused me to think: we live in an age of great convenience but have this made life better off or worse off?

The Power to Gratify
No doubt that advances in technology has made almost everything possible and almost everything can be achieved almost instantaneously... Wanna contact someone? The possibilities are endless: conventional phones, handphones, sms, emails, ICQ, MSN, mms, video conferencing etc. Want to find information? Switch on the computer and start searching the net instead of just having the option of going to the nearest library. You can even buy something through the internet, without ever leaving your house. Think about movies and songs: when you want a song or movie, it is possible to find and download it through the internet even if it means infringing copyright laws.

A Life of Desire
Our culture of consumption has changed drastically. You no longer buy things that are necessary but things that you are made to want... increasingly, the business model has taken over almost every aspect of life; everything we do must make economic sense and should generate a gain for ourselves (and our organization). The answer to that, as proposed by the business model: "(i) know your customer and their desires, and (ii) find opportunities to help them see how your product or service helps gratify that desire. If not, simply create desire".

We are constantly bombarded by advertisements; advertisements in whatever format (TV commercials, print, web etc) creates desires that you need something (even though it is not a need but a want) through visual cues, often disguised in one of the many following ways:

"it is cool to have this, don't lose out to others"
"it is not cool to be like this and we have the answer"
"this is classy and you WILL want to be seen in this"
"we understand your needs (and this is what you need)",
"pamper yourself, you DESERVE it"
"don't forget you HAVE this problem and we have the (instant) solution"
"this is good for you (and we are the best out there, no doubt about it)"
"this is a deal, act now (or you will regret it)"
and the list goes on...

The basic principle is to create a desire to buy their product or service. As a result, we have desires after desires and if you have the purchasing power, you will soon find yourself gratifying yourself. The aim of life seems to be to gratify every desire that comes along the way.

Welcome to the Age of "Instant Gratification"!
So with ingredient 1 (A life with desire after desire being surfaced and created) + ingredient 2 (power to gratify these desires, either with money or technology), I just find it hard to believe that we can ever find it easy to fight temptation or even have the persistence to fight it, especially the young, who has grown up in this age of "instant gratification" "(where almost everything is possible). We have become somewhat pampered; we expect to have our desires gratified almost immediately.

Example of a Bane
When we send an email or sms, we expect an almost instantaneous response (after all, doesn't technology make that possible?) and a delay in response is sometimes interpreted as "sidelining" you or your message as "second priority"; definitely not good for one's self-esteem. Or you will just get so fed up with the person for making your work and your life so difficult for you, all because the response did not come in as fast as you would want them to.

I am sure there are other banes of living in the age of instant gratification but this is what comes to mind for now...