On-Demand Living: The Cost of Instant Everything
Making Connections in a Disconnected World Part 3
On Demand is everywhere. It’s killing us.
Want to watch a movie? You don’t have to wait for it to come on TV—you just stream it. Missed a meeting? No problem, there’s a Zoom recording. Want to listen to a podcast? You can speed it up to 2x. It’s all about efficiency, convenience, and getting what we want, when we want it. As our lives become more on-demand and self-paced, something vital is slipping through our fingers—our friendships and our ability to connect with others.
The Rise of “On Demand” Everything
The on-demand lifestyle is seductive. Americans have busy schedules and desire to maximize every minute. We can binge-watch entire seasons of shows in a weekend, order groceries with a tap, and even “attend” church from our couch.1 The pandemic only accelerated this trend, making Zoom meetings and remote everything the new normal (which I greatly enjoy, because I detest traffic).
But as we’ve made our lives more idiosyncratic, we’ve also made them more isolated. We don’t have to wait for anything—or anyone—anymore. And that’s changing the way we relate to each other.
Speeding Up, Tuning Out
I love a good podcast, and because, for me, how someone expresses something — the pause, the gasps, the discontinuations, etc… — means as much to me as the words themselves. Bt that’s not true for everyone. Many of us listed to podcast in the fastest mode we can.