The Madwoman is troubled.
Remember when you’d get up in the morning and grab your paper at your door/driveway/flower bed (or your neighbor’s. when they were away. and they asked you to, of course. Or when they slept in and you just borrowed it until they got up). Every TV show from the ’50’s and 60’s, even 70’s showed someone at the kitchen table or at a desk reading the daily paper…
Seems for most of us that ritual is no more. The New York Times figured it out and offers a weekends-only delivery option (because who really has time to read THAT opus every morning before work? You can’t really read it on the subway ’cause you invariably invade the personal space of those around you every time you turn a page. I used to read only the front page of each section for that reason. Please don’t tell). There’s even a Sundays-only option (because as we all know, the Sunday NYT is the ultimate Sunday pastime. Which lasts ALL WEEK. Awesome).
It’s not that we don’t want our news. We just want it quick. I don’t mean hot-off-the-presses quick. I mean in-a-nutshell quick. Readers Digest quick (see below). And, of course, there’s an App for that. The NYT has an app called NYT Now. It sifts through it’s stories and provides you with it’s top picks. They call it your “Morning (or afternoon or evening) Briefing.” [So why is the paper so damn enormous if all I need to know is in a dozen articles?] They even give the “read time” for each. I kid you not. I wonder…Is that the MBA read time? The Bachelor’s Degree read time? Probably not the Evelyn Wood grad read time (see below).
One-upping NYT Now is “the Skimm.” Don’t know it? You should check it out: https//theskimm.com. They read the news for you and give you the top stories in a fresh and clever way. It’s the tapas of news. Small plates, full of flavor, surprisingly satisfying. Subscribe and get the daily email newsletter – at 6:30 a.m. every weekday, you’ll be informed and entertained, and ready for tonight’s cocktail party. No more looking like someone just figured-out your true identity (hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?) when current events are being discussed. Now THAT I have time for! This madwoman likey.
Still…What changed? Inquiring minds want to know.
Was it the Internet? Probably to an extent, but I think the Web had more to do with the method of getting information (online vs. paper). Plus I think it may go back farther than that. Think about Readers Digest “condensed” books. These became popular in the 1960’s. “Abridged” versions of popular novels (What, people couldn’t take the time to read a damn book as the author wrote it? I never understood this). How about “Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics?” Speed-reading course. Started in 1959. Teaches you to read faster and more efficiently (thus boosting your productivity, and who doesn’t want that, right?). How does it work? Seems you don’t have to read every word to get the meaning. Seems you can skip some (who knew?) and Evelyn can teach you which ones don’t make the cut. Must be how poor Pluto felt…
So what happened? Did we undergo an evolutionary change to our collective attention span? This was a cultural shift, folks. Did the Women’s Movement have something to do with it? Look at those time frames. Coincidence? [And by the way, Thanks Very Much, Gloria Steinem. Now I have two full-time jobs-at home and out there, each of which suffers because of the other, I’m tired all the time, and I still don’t earn as much as a man in the workforce. So yeah. Thanks for that]
Now we’re all “Tell me what I need to know” and “Just the facts, ma’am.” This is merely a symptom of a bigger problem. The problem is this: We are out of time. Time is a resource and there is not enough of it. So we look for shortcuts for everything (OMG! WTF?). We stop for nothing (certainly not to smell the flowers). We’ve gone from home-cooked to take-out to drive-thru. We “multitask” (a skill to be perfected and proud of). We accelerate, we genetically modify. Why? Because we need to it get it all done, more efficiently, with better results. We were excited about the leaps made in technology. They were supposed lead to greater efficiency and ultimately to more “down-time.” Instead we ended up with more work time. Never unplugging. Never out of reach. Never logged off. We were duped. Now we’re chasing ghosts.
Be afraid, I say. Be very afraid when we no longer have time to read a freakin’ news story, when we take our info in little regurgitated mouthfuls like baby birds – not because we can’t chew it or digest it ourselves, but because we don’t have time for the full meal. Chew on that.
What’s next? Maybe we can just get “chipped” and information can be transmitted directly to our brains, with perfect recall on demand (think of all those textbooks you’ve read). Otherwise, we won’t even know it’s in there.
Why stop there? Maybe we’ll stop even trying to chew our food. We’re on our way to that now. Smoothie anyone? We want all the good stuff without the effort…of what? Chewing it? Smoothies are NOT REAL FOOD, PEOPLE! Real food is a steak, a pizza. REAL FOOD requires chewing. I don’t care what your guru says. Hey, let’s all just walk around with IV ports in our arms and get our nutrients tubed in. It’d save time (and talk about multitasking!). And no more cooking – who has time for that anyway? Hey, we could be onto something here! What else can we automate? No time for exercise? Let’s hook-up some electrodes and work those muscles! Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey! Yet another multitasking opportunity! And screw that “no pain, no gain” bullshit. I never bought into that anyway.
But what would we do with all that freed-up (not free. nothing truly is) time…?
Anyway…
The final “what” and “why” I cannot answer: What prize awaits us at the end of the race? Then again, how can we win a race where there’s no finish line? So why do we keep running?
Sorry for getting all heavy here. I warned you (see line 1).
Look, somebody took my time and I WANT IT BACK. Is all I’m sayin’.