Instant Gratification Summary

This particular article that was published in the Boston Globe describes one of the many problems that is affecting society today, that being the idea or concept of instant gratification. The article begins by explaining the fact that more and more people in society, specifically in the United States, are constantly demanding instant results in their lives. Contrary to the ideas of some people, this demand for instant results is not actually contained only through our interactions with technology but also in our physical encounters with other people and tasks that confront people in their day to day lives. The author of the article, Christopher Muther, uses some general examples do describe these desires, whether it being retailers offering same day delivery or using smartphones to eliminate

This shown through companies such as Walmart and eBay, who are trying to outdo their competitors by offering incentives such as a same day delivery for an additional fee. This constant desire is also shown through one of the most common things that we do in our lives, which is trying to connect to the internet. Studies have shown that after a certain amount of time (10-15 seconds), the number of people that wait for a webpage to load goes down exponentially. One thing to realize, however, is that the idea of instant gratification is not new, but people's ideas if instant results has become faster and faster, which leads to our impatience. Other studies have concluded that society has become focussed on quick way to have fun, instead of things like reading books, which definitely takes a somewhat large amount of time. Phil Fremont Smith, of ImpulseSave, says something that really summarizes the impatience of people that being that "We are not wired to think about the long term