Why is everyone so busy?

What is causing our lives to become so hectic? Most people complain that life is becoming to fast and busy. Yet we quickly get bored if something is not exciting enough. People are constantly busy with all kinds of things. If our work involves working on the computer, we are bombarded by e-mails. To make it worse, we have a messenger program running, constantly chatting to people. We make and receive calls all the time. In between our cell phones interrupt with calls, test messages and picture messages.

Have you observed people at a seminar? Recently I went to a computer seminar and at the foyer people met for coffee before the seminar started. I watched started to people feeling uncomfortable with themselves. In particularly the ones who did not know anyone else there looked out of place. They would take out their cell phones and either make calls to someone they knew or send/receive sms messages.

When we go to our homes, we switch on the television. We religiously follow some shows and programmes on the television, not to mention sport event. Even if we don’t actively watch television, it is running in the back ground while we eat our dinners. Some people are now obsessed with the console games. They grew up with it and now can’t stop playing games. In the malls people walk around with their MP3 players, totally oblivious of the people around them, like they are tuned into another world!

Are we getting used to being bombarded with a constant flow of “information”? Do we find life boring if we are not constantly being distracted by these modern devices? I have seen people almost getting withdrawal symptoms from not being able to receive their e-mails for a few minutes. Some people find it unacceptable to go to a place where Internet access is not available, not to mention cell phone connectivity!

Does these devices and distractions effect our attention span? Does it make us more or less tolerant of other people? Do we find time to notice real things in this world? If we do “see” something we agree or don’t agree with, do we find it important enough to care about it?

It looks to me like we are not only being bombarded with useless everyday things to keep us distracted and busy; we are looking for even more “distractions” to make our lives interesting. We are even growing to love these new toys and struggle to see how we could have lived without it. We have become totally dependent on these technologies.

We can’t remember nor do we need to remember someone’s telephone number. We don’t even need to remember someone’s birthday or home address. Everything is stored and saved on these devices. They can even direct us to street addresses, no need to ask for directions or actually remember the road. We still have to remember our multiple pin numbers for everything, but I suspect that soon a device or implant will be developed that will change all this. Again, I suspect we will gladly accept and embrace this technology. It will be sold as another way to make our lives better, if not safer.
All this sounds to me like we are living in a high tech prison, we are trapped. The only difference is we like our prison; we just need more and more things to keep us busy here.