SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Economist - Why is everyone so busy?
The predictions sounded like promises: in the future, working hours would be short and vacations long. “Our grandchildren”, reckoned John Maynard Keynes in 1930, would work around “three hours a day”—and probably only by choice. Economic progress and technological advances had already shrunk working hours considerably by his day, and there was no reason to believe this trend would not continue. Whizzy cars and ever more time-saving tools and appliances guaranteed more speed and less drudgery in all parts of life. Social psychologists began to fret: whatever would people do with all their free time?
This has not turned out to be one of the world’s more pressing problems. Everybody, everywhere seems to be busy. In the corporate world, a “perennial time-scarcity problem” afflicts executives all over the globe, and the matter has only grown more acute in recent years, say analysts at McKinsey, a consultancy firm. These feelings are especially profound among working parents. As for all those time-saving gizmos, many people grumble that these bits of wizardry chew up far too much of their days, whether they are mouldering in traffic, navigating robotic voice-messaging systems or scything away at e-mail—sometimes all at once.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gallondr00nk on Friday December 26 2014, @12:30PM
I'll throw an idea in the mix. I've been reading a Terence McKenna book that suggested that one of the reasons might be that our society is built predominantly on the use of mild stimulants - caffeine, tobacco and sugar in particular.
As someone also quitting smoking, I can attest to the tobacco. The tough cravings for me are when I need a little jab of energy or concentration, or social situations where other people are a little jacked up as well.
I suspect that we don't really need to be so busy, but it's a deep vein in our culture going back to the Industrial revolution.