Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (by James Gleick)
Megumi Wada
Student#:260164112
About this Book:
How many times do you push the button while you take an elevator? Are you good at multitasking? Is the microwave too slow for you? By definition, time is a continuum in which one event follows another from the past through to the future. Today, we have so many things to do in one day that 24-hours no longer fits in with our schedule book anymore. Instead, we move by the minute, by seconds and even by nanoseconds just to save time…to squeeze other things in. Since 24 hours is not enough for humans, multitasking has become a way of life. The prospect of saving time has become a major selling point of technological innovations. Children are proud to tell their friends that they eat “homemade meal” consisting of frozen ready-to-eat hamburger and potatoes. Time is no longer something to “spend”. We, who are chased by time, created new type of human characteristics called Type A personality, which is often described by aggression, hostility, and suffering from anxiety of “time”. Something is happening to our society. Faced with the unforgiving pressure to do more, to achieve more, to cram more into life, we are constantly looking for ways of doing things faster. It is such a general topic, but this book takes a bird’s eye view to describe the many different personal causes and effects of time.
How did we get here? We don’t know yet. However all we know right now is that “acceleration is the modern obsession.”
Why you should read Faster:
This book doesn’t just describe what is going on our lives; in terms of the way we live with time and what we should do in the future. The whole book is an introduction. Through more than 30 chapters, Gleick presents several cases and ideas, before each chapter ends. The reader keeps waiting for the actual book to start including some analysis and conclusions. However it never comes.
There are 2 possible messages from James Gleick:
1. Gleick purposely made this book for people living in this “Faster” world. One of the chapters, he talked about more jogging, less reading. We don’t actually have time to read. Why don’t we finish reading books like eating fast food?
2. We haven’t found the cause and cure for this “disease of clock”. Gleick does not suggest any reason or remedy for this matter. Instead, the readers are left with a list of serious symptoms in 21st century to contemplate on their own.
James Gleick points out many examples of “time” with different aspects of life. He covers the elements of why people need to accelerate in everything to the point where “making time” becomes a nightmare. Gleick does not make criticism, but rather observations to provide an engaging and compelling look at some important and indicative changes in our society.
The book suggests that if we can argue for acceleration in several areas that really make a difference in our society, we can eventually begin to answer our common complaint that there is never enough time. Thinking about how we live is significant not only for 21st century leaders and professionals, but also the rest of us, since time is a common, basic need that we cannot live without. Only we have the answer for it.
3 Things I learned from this book:
1. Time is NOT money.
Time is limited and so is money. Both are really hard to manage and hard to use. We have a constant income per day- “24 hours”. However, unlike money, we cannot save this time at the bank, invest, nor use whenever you want. James Gleick says, “Saving time is a very complicated mission.” Then why are we so in hurry all the time? Some people say, “I need to save time for traveling.” You cannot save time. Time passes no matter what you are doing at this moment. Sadly, even though most of people know this fact, satisfaction of how to manage time will never be achieved for us. Nowadays, the standard of livings in many countries have rapidly increased and our concept towards time and money has changed.
Time > Money.
Stacks of to-do lists accumulate in front of us and even if we are on vacation, we are lying on the beach with a blackberry.
Symptom 1: Multi-taskers
2. Time really flies!
Collections of brain knowledge have invented amazing convenient machines and transportation methods all over the world. James Gleick noted that before Federal Express shipping became commonplace in the 1980s, the exchange of business documents did not usually require a package to be delivered “absolutely, positively overnight.” But soon, the whole world expected goods to arrive the next morning. Mailing systems have also dramatically changed since the advent of e-mails. Photo development, food cultivation, and even such basic actions like walking are now faster than ever. Airplanes are amongst the most ingenious inventions of all-times. You can basically go anywhere in the world, whenever you want, and in such a short time compared to the when people used ships to cross over the oceans. However, because of this, we have gotten a new disease, jet lag. Time difference is against the daily routine of the body and makes people more fatigued. But who does care? This is our future. Maybe time traveling through isn’t so far away…
Symptom 2: Disease of Clock
3. Times don't change. Men do. (by Sam Levenson)
Living in Tokyo numbs your sense of time. Everybody walks very fast, subways come every minute, there are a lot of people, bright lights in the city at night, and convenience stores are open 24 hours. All these things are normal for Japanese. There is a reason why Japan has the second highest GDP in the world. We never sleep. Many work all night, until the last trains are gone. From the outside, Japan may be one of the most peaceful and richest countries. However, when you look at the people’s faces, they all look dead. There are so many Type A people.
Psychologist Selye introduced the general adaptation syndrome to explain the response of the body to stressors. Those stages show exactly what people in Japan are going through.
Stage 1: Alarm
People start to have symptoms of getting stressed such as feeling blue, fatigue and depression.
¯
Stage 2: Resistance
Neurological and hormonal changes will lead to diseases of adaptation. (E.g. Hikikomori and Hypertention)
¯
Stage 3: Exhaustion
This is the stage where the body breaks down and borderlines death.
(E.g. committing suicide)
Tokyo is one of the model cities of the future. This can be viewed in a good way and a bad way. Japan is famous for its beautiful city, but it has record-high suicide rates as well. This is not solely because of the faster society, but it is definitely a contributing factor.
Symptom 3: Time = Stress
Our physical evolution is still quite slow, but our technological enhancements have enables us to evolve at a frightening pace, and it’s getting faster. At the same time, our psychological aspects haven’t been able to catch up. It appears that the 21st century will see humans physically and psychologically merge with technology and time.
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