By Hyon O'Brien
For my birthday last February, our two daughters in Washington, D.C. sent me an amazing gift. It is an Amazon Kindle, an electronic gadget that lets you buy books online and read them on an electronic screen. It holds up to 3,500 books so I can download and read all the books that I desire. At the moment I have only 12 items, the top of the list being the Bible. Over lunch recently, one of my friends recommended a book by Michael Pollan, ``Botany of Desire,” and I was thrilled to have it in my Kindle just one minute after I ordered it. This is an extreme case of instant gratification. I love this! But it got me thinking about the advantages and disadvantages of the instant gratification that we seem to be constantly on the lookout for.
When we want something, we want it now, and that wish is instantly being satisfied. The immediate attainment of our desires.
Bill Bryson (1951- ), one of my favorite American writers, summed up instant gratification with his usual wit. ``To an American, the whole purpose of living, the one constant confirmation of continued existence, is to cram as much sensual pleasure as possible into one's mouth more or less continually. Gratification, instant and lavish, is a birthright."
Here are some examples of instant gratification that we experience every day:
- We can get almost any music or song by accessing YouTube on the Internet.
- We can send pictures via cyberspace instantly anywhere in the world as long as there is a computer or other wireless gadget that can receive them.
- If we are wondering about the etymology of a word, we can look it up on the Internet or a smart phone and our curiosity can be satisfied right away.
- When we get hungry but do not feel like fixing something, we can make instant cup ramyeon by pouring in some boiled water from an electronic kettle, or just heat frozen TV dinners in a microwave oven.
- We can shop online, and the amazing 'quick service' can deliver any item within the same day we make a request.
- If we see an item at a shop that takes our fancy, that becomes our possession within minutes. No cash? No problem. We can have it on credit instantly.
- Our bank accounts allow us to look at it any time on-line instantly to see up to date status of our account activity.
The list goes on.
What are the shortcomings of this culture of instant gratification? When do we need to exercise the discipline of delayed gratification?
As we get more and more accustomed to the instant gratification way of living, we lose patience waiting for anything. It affects our way of thinking in the sexual morality department also; young people who are getting married cannot wait till the wedding night to express their love with their bodies. It's done already way before that sacred night.
We don't write letters any more. It’s now a novelty to receive snail mail. These days we send text messages on the phone and receive an instant reply. The young generation is forgetting the art of letter writing. This is a huge loss.
People have difficulty saving money because they want the items they see immediately on credit. The temptation is too high and impulse buying happens. The short term excitement of having a new thing lasts briefly and they may end up paying more than the double the original price to pay off the accrued interest.
Some overweight people with money indulge themselves in the instant solution of liposuction instead of eating right and exercising regularly to maintain a good living style.
We are living in an era of over-stimulation delivered quickly to our senses. Ever fewer people have the patience to read a 300-page book. We are content with the movie version of great classics. Our attention span is getting shorter all the time.
The ``marshmallow experiment” at Stanford University seems to show a correlation between delayed gratification and intelligence. A group of four-year-olds was offered a marshmallow each. They were promised another one if they could wait for twenty minutes without eating the first one. Some waited and others didn't. The researchers kept track of these children into adolescence and found that those who had shown a capacity for delayed gratification scored on average 210 points higher on the SAT test.
We can do everything faster than ever before. Technology makes our lives easier with all the time-saving devices that are available. So we are supposed to have more leisure time. Are we happier than the people of previous generations? Is our life more fulfilled? If not, what went wrong? Something to think about ….
Hyon O'Brien, a former reference librarian in the United States, has returned to Korea after 32 years of living abroad. She can be reached at hyonobrien@gmail.com.