societal shift towards the instantaneous—with the explicit intention of saving time—is infused into modern life. But what are the implications for our happiness?
Technological innovations that offer convenience and time efficiency have brought remarkable changes to the way we spend our time. These technologies have inarguably made our lives more convenient and our time usage more efficient. Presumably, being enabled to work more efficiently and spend less time on chores should provide us with greater opportunities for discretionary leisure time, enhancing our subjective well-being: yet while we have indeed experienced an appreciable increase in leisure time over the course of the past half-century, there has been no related improvement in aggregate happiness during the same period.
In our research we have found that cultural symbols that tout ‘time efficiency’ influence how we experience the passage of time by imparting a generalized sense of impatience. Furthermore, we found that this impatience hampers our ability to fully experience and enjoy life’s pleasurable moments—to ‘take the time to smell the roses’.
In Western society, time is conceptualized as linear and non-recoverable, and thus as a limited and valuable resource that can be spent, saved or wasted. Consequently, our daily activities are increasingly structured around an ‘efficiency principle’: the less time consumed by an activity, product or service, the better.
We recently set out to study an industry that perpetuates the efficiency principle even more than most: fast food. Traditionally, eating involves food preparation and communal dining, making it a social, ritualistic event where communities can bond, rather than merely take in nutrition. However, the popularization of fast food has shifted our habits towards ‘eating efficiently’—filling our stomachs as quickly as possible in order to move on to other, more important matters.
Indeed, fast food has arguably become the ultimate symbol of time efficiency, and its influence extends far beyond our eating habits. In The McDonaldization of Society, George Ritzer details the widespread influence that the industry’s ‘efficiency principle’—to deliver products as quickly as possible—has had on the restructuring of organizations and society beyond the industry itself. For example, rather than waiting for furniture to be built, upholstered, and delivered, IKEA has thrived by offering consumers furniture they can take home, build and use that very same day.