WEBVTT - Future Shock 2023, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:15.040 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:16.079 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.880 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.720 two in our series on Future Shock, an example of 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:26.720 that most interesting class of artifacts. A book of predictions 0:00:26.840 --> 0:00:30.600 about the future written more than fifty years ago, which 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:32.920 is always fun. So if you haven't listened to part 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:35.320 one yet, you should go back check that out first, 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:41.040 but to briefly refresh here, Future Shock was an extremely influential, 0:00:41.320 --> 0:00:45.839 best selling futurology book published in the year nineteen seventy 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:50.120 by an author named Alvin Toffler, and though only Alvin's 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.839 name appears on the copy that I read, a lot 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:57.720 of retrospective sources attribute these works to Alvin and Heidi Toffler. 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:02.720 Alvin was Heidi's husband, and they were apparently major collaborators 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:04.640 in developing ideas for the book, so a lot of 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.959 retrospective looks at it credit both Alfin and Heidi, so 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:13.040 we might say Toaffler or the Toafflers. Like most futurology books, 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.960 Future Shock contains a lot of predictions about the future, 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:22.560 some quite prescient, others that sound absolutely absurd with hindsight. 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.440 But the real core of the book is not its 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:28.759 specific predictions about what's going to happen twenty or thirty 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:32.120 years down the road, but in its description of a 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:38.319 mass psychological condition that the authors say is already evident 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:41.440 at the time of the book's writing, brought on by 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:47.000 the technological environment of what the Tafflers call super industrial society, 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.800 and this would be the next technological leap forward after 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.800 the Industrial Revolution. This is the technology environment beginning in 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:58.280 roughly the mid twentieth century, and we got into more 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:02.160 detail about this last time. But basically, according to the Tofflers, 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:07.080 future shock is a way of experiencing a world in 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:11.359 which technology, and downstream from that, economics and culture are 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.359 all themselves changing and changing the world at an ever 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:20.160 accelerating rate, and this leads to a variety of mass 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:24.079 psychological distress similar to what has been called culture shock. 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.000 Culture shock is when a person is plunged into a 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.120 foreign culture and they don't understand the customs, don't know 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.600 how to communicate, don't know how to interact with or 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:35.560 make sense of the world around them, and suffer increased 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.960 anxiety and other symptoms of psychological distress until they either 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.040 become acclimated to the culture and figure out how to 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.000 interact with it, or go home. Future Shock is like that, 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:51.040 but it's for one's own culture and the way it 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.040 is changed around us by technology. Except with the future Shock, 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.040 you can't fix it by going home. The past is 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:01.000 gone and the world is just going to keep changing, 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.360 and it's just going to keep changing faster and faster. 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.320 And this leads to, according to them, this feeling of 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:13.519 widespread distress. People feel that there's something wrong about modern life. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.120 It's everything's too hurried. Something is just like something about 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.840 the world is just bugging and harassing me, and I 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.480 never feel safe for at home or like I can 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.399 figure out what's going on. And of course, they say, 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.000 of course, if this were true, it would have negative 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.880 downstream effects on physical and mental health, which they talk 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.640 about by creating this state of heightened stress and the 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.640 other symptoms brought on by future shock. So we wanted 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.920 to revisit this book and give it a look fifty 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.840 years on. What do we think they were right about? 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.360 What do we think they were wrong about? What are 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.560 some of the interesting insights in the book. What are 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:50.600 some of the funny things about the book. Last time 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.520 I think we ended up. Do we get into the 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.000 predictions about how children are going to have to learn 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.520 how to pilot submarines in school? 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.320 No, I don't think you brought up the submarines. This 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.480 was definitely something that had been jettison from my brain 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:10.000 since my my original reading of the book. Tell us 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.760 about the submarines, Joe, I don't. 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:13.560 I mean, there's just a bit. One of the big 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:15.720 predictions for the future is that more and more of 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.520 human life is going to take place on and underneath 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.359 the ocean because there are a lot of natural resources 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:23.640 to harvest there, which in a way is true. There 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:25.800 there are a lot of natural resources there, but we 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.640 haven't really shifted to ocean based cultures the way the 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.360 book predicts. And in the chapter about education, I do 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.720 recall there's a paragraph where it says something about how, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.520 you know, obviously children in the future it might be 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:41.680 more advantageous for them to learn the skills of navigating 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.080 a submarine environment and maybe maybe like piloting submarines and stuff. 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.039 Then it will be to learn the learn the you know, 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.080 the dead languages of the past or something. 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.599 Yeah, yeah, it turns out the Sea Lab future hasn't 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:56.800 really caught on like they thought it might. 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:58.920 But like we said, there are other parts of the 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.080 book where they offer insights that at least I thought 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.240 we're pretty on target and do describe things that have 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.080 happened in the last fifty years quite well. So maybe 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.760 today we're going to start off by getting into some 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.640 of the features of this future shock world that they 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.239 describe and predict. And so the Toplers identify three big 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.480 characteristics of super industrial society that they think will play 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:27.279 a major role in inducing this state of future shock. 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:33.800 Those elements are transience, novelty, and diversity. Basically, the world 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.080 brought on by these changes in technology is going to 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:41.119 be a world in which things just kind of situations 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.719 arise more quickly and fade away more quickly without giving 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.760 you time to adjust to them. That's the transience also, 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.200 but there's a physical transience of things around us and 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:55.200 of relationships between people. So there's a faster coming and 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.560 going of the situations of life. That's transience. There is 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.640 not which is obviously just like new things that you're 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.359 not used to are going to be constantly coming into being, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:07.839 and you will have to get used to them somehow. 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.880 And this includes everything from you know, technology and consumer products, 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:16.120 to business and economic relationships, to things in culture like 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.480 the family arrangements and social groups and stuff like that. 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.560 And then finally diversity. There will just be more and 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:25.960 more different kinds of things in the world for you 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.840 to keep track of and select between and try to understand. 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.359 Yeah. Yeah, so let's let's break it down a little 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.360 bit here, Yeah, because it definitely helps to sort of 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.160 single in on some of the key examples they bring up, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.680 because they ultimately bring up so many different examples and 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.599 illustrations of what future shock is that it's it's easy 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.240 to just sort of think of it as this big 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:53.240 amorphous thing. So one of the key concepts that the 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:57.120 toplers bring up a lot is that of over choice quote, 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:01.039 the point at which the advantages of diversity and individualization 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:06.240 are canceled by the complexity of the buyer's decision making process. 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:11.480 So in this freedom becomes unfreedom as one suffers from 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:16.160 a kind of hyper decision fatigue. And they also offer 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.080 that there may be a social variation of over choice 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.520 as well, as one suffers from an inability quote to 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:28.200 create a sensible integrated and reasonably stable personal style. Now, 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:30.320 I don't know about that last part personally. 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.840 If I understand this idea right, it's that you know, 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.120 when there's just like too much freedom and variety to 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.760 choose from in how to style yourself, like to decide 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.720 to like, hey, am I a biker or am I 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.679 a hippie or am I a whatever, that it's actually 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.200 kind of paralyzing to have all these options. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.000 Yeah, And I mean, I would be very interested to 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:56.840 hear from listeners out there as far as personal style 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.160 is concerned. Here if you've ever felt over choice or 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:02.720 something like over choice concerning your personal style, I don't know. 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.280 I think of my own experience and I look around 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:08.280 in the world around me, and it seems like people, yeah, 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:11.520 have more choices than ever, but they still seem to 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:16.080 figure it out. If they're paralyzed by over choice regarding 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.160 whether to be a biker or not, they don't seem 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.920 to express it. I was just just saw somebody's social 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:24.240 media post the other day and they had like a 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.040 picture of their boyfriend there and they like were clearly 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.800 decked out like a nineteen seventies biker, and I was like, well, 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:32.120 they chose something and they're committing to it. They don't 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.120 seem to be paralyzed by choice. 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.920 Here a seventies biker, So this is a were wolves 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:39.240 on wheels biker, not like a fifties biker. 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.199 Total yeah, total seventies biker. Look. And you know because 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:45.199 even now, like if you choose biker, you do get 0:08:45.200 --> 0:08:49.240 to choose which decade. Right, there are multiple choices, but 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.079 not necessarily overchoice. 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.679 Do I want to be like Roger Korman biker, like 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:55.920 a Marlon Brando biker, or do I want to be 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:56.600 a were wolf on. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.000 Wheels exactly psychomania? You have your choice. 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:02.840 I think one of the big differences is that the 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:04.840 earlier bikers bathe more. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.120 They do get grevier. In the seventies, everything get a 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:12.120 little gravier, all right, now, as far as decision fatigue goes, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.840 this being related to this concept of over choice, A 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:18.480 lot has been written about decision fatigue over the years. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.120 I know it was particularly hot as like a buzzword, 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:25.520 you know, maybe ten to fifteen years ago. I don't 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.800 think everything has been quite worked out concerning decision fatigue. 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:32.000 I think we all know that feeling when we have 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.400 trouble making yet another decision in the day, often late 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.960 in the day or laid in a shopping trip, and 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:42.040 we often wind up making questionable purchasing decisions, or that 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:45.720 seems to be the case. That's the argument of decision fatigue. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.400 Yeah, I haven't checked in on the empirical research on 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.360 decision fatigue, but I can say from personal experience it 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:55.240 seems to be a real thing. I mean that there 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:00.240 is an increasingly sort of taxing cumulative effect on the 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.000 mind of having to make decisions over and over, and 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:08.360 your desire to continue making decisions definitely goes down, and 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:10.880 the more you have had to do it, and probably 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.640 also your ability to use your rational faculties when making 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.200 those decisions goes down as part of that cumulative effect, 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.320 which may be a reason that you know, like certain 0:10:21.520 --> 0:10:24.400 sales interactions are structured a certain way that like, you know, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.679 you've already had to make a bunch of decisions about 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.400 investigating these cars and stuff, and then right at the end, 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.360 when you are just like weary of this process, they 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:37.280 hit you with upsells and stuff, and you're just like 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.440 trying to get this done and get out the door. 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.280 And so maybe you give in, even if it doesn't 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:41.839 make sense. 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.440 Yeah, Yeah, it does seem to either be a reality 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.559 or touch on a very firm reality when it comes 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:53.320 to sales interactions, because it has become something that that 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:57.800 various salespeople depend on now in terms of just over 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.800 choice more generally, you know, as far as my own 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:04.760 experiences go, I guess I have felt something like over 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:10.000 choice at times. Given, especially when you're thinking about extensive 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.680 digital catalogs of movies or books. There have been plenty 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.280 of times where I have my e reader device out 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.080 and I'm looking for something to read, and I end up, 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.160 you know, just browsing a lot, downloading some samples, and 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.640 then eventually I get sleepy and go to bed and 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:29.120 I haven't actually read anything I've In the past, I 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:32.360 had this experience with some of the big digital catalogs 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.839 of movies online where I'll go on there and I'll 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.160 start looking around at interesting looking films, looking at posters, 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:40.800 looking at who's in them, and then seeing what are 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.840 some like related films, and I end up spending like, 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.240 you know, an hour even looking around at films, never 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:52.280 pick out something to watch, get sleepy, go to bed. Yeah, 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.400 and even Reno reached the point where I'm just like 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.600 I just can't decide, and I realize I'm not going 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:58.320 to make a decision and I just need to do 0:11:58.360 --> 0:11:58.880 something else. 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:02.439 Yeah, this is an extremely common thing with browsing movie 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.520 selections on streaming services. I've also really noticed this with music, 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:09.400 and in a way, this makes me very sad. I 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.760 cannot help but conclude my connection with music has become 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:18.120 less deep and less fulfilling. I think as a result 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.000 of streaming services just having available anything I want to 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.040 listen to. I know I had a deeper and more 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.280 enjoyable relationship with music when I had a more limited 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.920 selection of music to choose from, and it was hard 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.200 to find things I wanted to listen to. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.000 Yeah, I definitely remember back when I had to buy 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.680 an album, even if it was a digital album, Like, 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:43.200 all right, i've spent my ten, twelve bucks whatever it 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:45.880 is for the week. I can't rationally buy another album 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:48.800 this week or maybe even this month. So this is 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:50.760 the one I'm going to listen to, and I'm either 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:52.600 going to like it or I'm going to find reasons 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.199 to like it. I'm going to rationalize this purchase. But nowadays, yeah, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.320 you can try anything, and you and I find myself 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.520 off in giving the new material just little or no 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.680 time to impress me, and it's got to really impress 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.480 me otherwise I just you know, it stays tagged, stays 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.719 in the list, but I might not listen to it 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:10.800 again for another year. 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:13.440 I hate that this is true about me, but I 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:14.719 think it is now. 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.400 I will say that with movies in particular, I find 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.440 it I'm encountering it less these days for a couple 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:26.079 of reasons. First, I think the monolithic selection that was 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:30.439 originally provided by some of these big, big box streaming platforms, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:34.000 there's been a you know, there's been a fracturing, there's 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:38.760 been a contraction of their offerings. And also we've seen 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.959 the resurgence of physical media. So I find myself going 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:46.080 to like Atlanta's own videodrome more often these days, looking 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:48.800 around there, and you know, I can feel overwhelmed by 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:51.680 the physical selection as well, But there's something different about 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:55.480 that physical selection and knowing that, like, Okay, in maybe 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.199 fifteen minutes, I need to leave here, and I'm either 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.319 leaving empty handed or I'm leaving taking a chance on something. 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.720 I think it may well be that your decision to 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:07.560 go to videodrome and get the physical media. Might be 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:09.840 kind of like the person who chooses says I'm a 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:11.720 biker or I'm a hippie. You know, it's part of 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.640 your personal style. You are in a way a movie nerd. 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:16.199 You're a guy who goes to videodrome. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.560 Yeah, yeah, so I would be interested to hear from 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:21.960 everyone else out there on this. Do you feel over 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.760 choice or something like over choice or even just doing 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.280 decision fatigue in any area of your life that relates 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:39.320 to what we're talking about here, all right, now, the 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.240 next big one, this is something that, of course, you know, 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:44.680 we could easily talk at length about. And that's the 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:48.080 idea that it's a world of accelerating change, The idea 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.400 that you know, one just feels simply overwhelmed by the 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.680 rate of change in the world social, technological et cetera, 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.200 with of course, all the additional avenues of change brought 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.280 on by both. So the rate of change outstrips our 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.520 ability to adapt. And meanwhile, the book argues, old stabilizing 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.200 institutions fall away or become less important, so the guide 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.760 rail you've been following through this storm of change might 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.600 suddenly just not be there. Anymore or it gets shakier. 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:18.840 And and you know what am I supposed to do now? 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.160 Because I've been depending upon this system to get me 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.120 here Now, they write that humans are famously grad at adapting, right, 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.800 I mean, that's like humanity's thing. We can adapt to 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.440 all sorts of situations and events in life, and we've 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:37.680 adapted a great deal as humans have have have taken 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:40.720 over the world. But at the end of the day, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.320 they say, we're still organisms. We're still quote unquote biosystems, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:49.160 and quote all such systems operate within inexorable limits, they write, 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.560 quote we might We may define future shock as the distress, 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.160 both physical and psychological, that arises from an overload of 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:02.280 the human organism's physical adaptive system and it's decision making processes. 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.800 Put more simply, future shock is the human response to 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:06.960 over stimulation. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.920 Yeah, and in some ways I see this as overlapping 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:15.160 with what we were just talking about. So in a 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.760 world where there is so much diversity of things to 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.880 choose between, and so many decisions you can or have 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:25.280 to make, that of course is a type of stress. 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:30.600 But also increasingly accelerating changes in the culture around you 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:34.920 force you to make new choices because they are they're 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.040 essentially they're obliterating the stable habits that you establish for 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.240 yourself that allow you to go through life without having 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.880 to make too many choices. Habits in a way are 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:49.360 just a way of alleviating choice stress, you know, like 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:51.360 I don't have to think about what I'm going to 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.880 do now I know what comes next. And we do 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.120 this with all kinds of things in our lives. When 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:58.600 the world around you is just changing faster and faster, 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.360 it's harder for you to stick to habits, and thus 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.280 it's just forcing new decision stresses onto you all the time. 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.959 Yeah. I mean even you know with technology obviously, you know, 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.879 in user interfaces, even as they make changes with various 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.600 interfaces to make it easier or supposedly make it easier, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:19.560 like you still then have to adapt to it. And 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.560 I think we all encounter this all the time, like, 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:25.080 oh now my phone screen is different. Now this interface 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.960 is different, and maybe it's actually going to be better, 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.239 but I still have to learn it all again, and 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.800 there's no telling when this will happen again, and then 0:17:32.840 --> 0:17:35.200 I have to relearn it once more. Yeah. 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:37.440 And one of the examples they talk about in the book. 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.600 This kind of relates to their discussion of planned obsolescence, 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.639 the fact that there are all kinds of consumer choices 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.679 people are forced to make, essentially because the you know, 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.520 manufacturers want to find a way to sell the new thing, 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.119 even if the new thing isn't actually all that better. 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.560 They've just they're trying to find ways to keep the 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.880 economic activity churning, which is still forcing you to learn 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.640 something new and make new decisions. Maybe maybe they can 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.320 convince you that, oh no, this, actually this new thing 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.720 is actually better. I do want the new thing, but 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:09.200 is it? 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.119 Yeah, it's it seems so rare these days. I mean, 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.200 this is where this aligns up with a lot of truth. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:15.879 It's so rare these days where you find a product 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.280 where it's like, oh, this works really well and I 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:20.320 don't think I'll ever have to replace it. There's no 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.040 way they could improve upon it. It seems almost bad 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.440 for business when that's the case. You know, Like I 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:28.760 have a coffee making device that I use all the time, 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:31.919 and I did manage to break it once whilst bringing 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.600 in on a flight, but otherwise it's simple, it doesn't break. 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.200 There's nothing really new you get for it, except for filters, 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:41.399 you know, or if you do lose or break apart. 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:43.520 And at times I'll wonder, it's like, wow, what's the 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.240 plan with this company? Like how can they you can 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.520 only like expand usage of this so much? How are 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.560 you going to sell additional ones to people who use 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:52.120 the product? 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:54.719 Yeah, well this ties into one of the next things 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.040 that they talk about, which is which is transience and 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:02.119 the economic or connsumer. One of the big economic or 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:06.800 consumer manifestations of transience is just everything around you being 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.760 more and more disposable, physically coming into your life for 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:12.920 a shorter and shorter period of time. 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:15.720 Yeah. And so they talk about this at length in 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.320 terms of products certainly, and you know, we've always heard 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.280 bits of this like oh, the furniture of these days, 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.600 this is not meant to last old days. We had the 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.120 same furniture our whole lives and that was passed down 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:27.639 to us from our grandparents, that sort of thing. But 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.639 in the book they also apply it to things beyond products, 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:35.400 like relationships, jobs, cultural institutions, and more. And I think 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:37.960 a lot of these examples do ring with a certain 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.000 amount of truth. For instance, people having to reskill, you know, 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:46.040 to keep pace with changes in technology, you know, people 0:19:46.040 --> 0:19:49.119 having to change careers multiple times during the course of 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:50.399 a lifetime and so forth. 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:52.640 There was one part in this section of the book 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.600 that I actually found quite interesting where it made me 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.160 think about how there are different types of materialism of 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.400 you know, one material goods, whereas you know, usually when 0:20:03.440 --> 0:20:05.680 you think about materialism, that's just like, oh, I want 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.199 to buy something, I want to own something and have it. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:11.440 But there is a big difference. There's a big emotional 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:16.320 and psychological difference between wanting to buy something that you 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.199 will keep and form a relationship with versus wanting to 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.480 buy something that you will use and then discard and 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:27.119 get a different thing that feels different. And they use 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.960 the example of dolls that like, traditionally, you know, a 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.359 child might form a strong emotional connection with one doll 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.000 and then keep that one doll over many, many years. 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.200 And then they talk about the idea of toy companies 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:46.360 trying to introduce new models of relationships with dolls where 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.639 you would like, trade in your old doll, maybe trade 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:50.760 in your old barbie to get a new one, to 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.840 introduce this idea that you don't just have one doll 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:57.040 and have a relationship with it for years, but you're 0:20:57.040 --> 0:20:58.800 always getting newer, better dolls. 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:01.760 In a way, it's almost hard to process that because 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.120 it's just how everything is now, you know. I mean, 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:07.920 it's like, except for maybe the trade in factor, that 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.639 actually sounds more sustainable than just having a drawer of 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:15.160 old barbies with like their hair all missed up and 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:16.320 no clothing on anymore. 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:19.040 Well, I think, yeah, I think that the old barbie 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:20.399 is what you do with them now is you make 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:22.320 them look weird, right, you like cut their hair in 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.800 strange ways and like draw on them and stuff. 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:27.520 Yeah, that sort of thing. But yeah, like I actually 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:29.160 kind of like the idea of, oh, when you're done 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.119 with this doll, with this toy, whatever the thing happens 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.800 to be, let's trade that in, let's pass that on. 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.840 I don't know, I become more of a minimalist with 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:38.680 the sort of thing. 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:42.280 So I guess while we're discussing things that I think 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.120 the book does get largely right. One of the most 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.960 interesting and persuasive sections of Future Shock, in my opinion, 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.600 was the Toffler's discussion of how people use and understand 0:21:55.640 --> 0:22:01.120 their time and how that's changing due to the technological environment. 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.320 For example, I thought there was a really interesting observation 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:09.600 about how fundamental duration expectation is to the character of 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:13.639 our lives. We are creatures that we have no choice 0:22:13.680 --> 0:22:17.639 but to live in time, and most situations that we 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:22.480 are involved in or affected by, come with an unspoken 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:27.400 expectation of a certain duration in time. We expect it 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:29.720 to take a certain amount of time to make dinner, 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:32.879 a certain amount of time to complete the workday, a 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:35.600 certain amount of time to travel here or there. And 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:40.359 also for longer situations. There are duration expectations for business 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:45.040 and employment relationships, length of time at a particular residence, 0:22:45.240 --> 0:22:48.120 length of a friendship or another type of social relationship, 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:52.080 length of a marriage, and sometimes we get these expectations wrong. 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:54.800 You know, you can't always predict, but we have to 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:59.040 be able to predict the duration of most of these 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:03.920 situations with some reasonable degree of accuracy, or we cannot 0:23:04.000 --> 0:23:07.640 navigate our lives. Everything feels totally out of control. And 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.239 I think the Tofflers advance a pretty convincing case that 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:16.200 in general, in the twentieth century, especially the later twentieth 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:22.760 century and superindustrial society, most situations in life are evolving 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:28.240 to become shorter and change faster, and this acceleration is 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:33.119 too fast for people to adjust their duration expectations accordingly, 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:36.760 and this contributes to a widespread feeling that life is 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:40.560 overwhelming and out of control and causes people to feel 0:23:40.600 --> 0:23:44.520 helpless and confused and alienated. And for the most part, 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.840 I think this diagnosis is largely insightful and correct. 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:51.800 This is fascinating. Yeah, getting into how we think about 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.680 our time, how we estimate the time duration of things 0:23:54.720 --> 0:23:57.399 we are going to be involved in, and then yeah, 0:23:58.119 --> 0:24:00.080 I think we can all think of time just in 0:24:00.119 --> 0:24:03.000 our regular day to day where you get something wrong 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:06.480 and yeah, before long, you maybe you don't feel just 0:24:06.520 --> 0:24:10.120 like overwhelming anxiety, but you do feel that feeling of well, 0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:13.720 there's a sense of narrowing, there's a sense of things 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:17.479 slipping a little out of your control, moving faster than 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:17.959 they should. 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:21.200 So, because their comments on time use were one of 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:23.639 the most interesting things about the book to me, I 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.240 was wondering, Okay, has anybody looked at this empirically. Do 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:30.480 we have like a retrospective that has tried to evaluate 0:24:30.520 --> 0:24:33.159 their claims and said how do they stack up? I 0:24:33.200 --> 0:24:35.960 actually did find a paper on this subject. So there 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:38.280 was a paper published in the year twenty ten in 0:24:38.359 --> 0:24:43.400 the Journal of Future Studies by an author named Mika Pantsar, 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:48.000 and it's called Future Shock, discussing the changing temporal architecture 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:53.800 of daily Life. So, Mika Pantsar is an economist based 0:24:53.920 --> 0:24:57.439 at the University of Helsinki in Finland. And so this 0:24:57.640 --> 0:25:01.520 article assesses some of the claim that are put forward 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:04.280 in Future Shock that feel correct, but are kind of 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:07.560 presented in the book without rigorous empirical backing. They're just 0:25:07.600 --> 0:25:11.800 sort of asserted, specifically, claims about changes to the rhythms 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:15.639 of everyday life. Pants Are writes quote. The main purpose 0:25:15.680 --> 0:25:17.960 of this article is to examine, in the light of 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:21.480 time use research, to what extent and in what ways 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:25.639 Tofler's claims about the quickening of life rhythms have come true. 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:30.080 And pants Are begins by noting a seeming paradox in 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:33.760 the research on time use. Since the time Future Shock 0:25:33.880 --> 0:25:37.800 was published in nineteen seventy, studies in Western countries have 0:25:37.880 --> 0:25:41.280 shown that, on average, the amount of leisure time in 0:25:41.320 --> 0:25:45.320 people's lives has slowly but steadily increased. I think it's 0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:48.520 not a huge difference, but there's been a gradual increase 0:25:48.840 --> 0:25:52.080 of a little bit with the exceptions of the United 0:25:52.119 --> 0:25:54.520 States in Great Britain, where it seems leisure time has 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:58.119 actually somewhat decreased in the same period, at least up 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:00.480 to the point of the studies pants are sites which 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:02.640 are from nineteen ninety two in two thousand and four, 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:05.399 can't be sure if the trend continues after that. But 0:26:05.840 --> 0:26:08.520 even in the rest of the Western countries where people 0:26:08.600 --> 0:26:11.720 have on average had a little bit more free time, 0:26:12.240 --> 0:26:17.680 surveys have found people report consistently increased feelings of hurriedness 0:26:17.680 --> 0:26:21.200 in their lives. So of course it makes sense why 0:26:21.240 --> 0:26:23.720 people would be feeling more hurried and stressed out in 0:26:23.800 --> 0:26:26.679 the US and Great Britain on average if people actually 0:26:26.680 --> 0:26:29.000 have a little bit less free time, But why would 0:26:29.040 --> 0:26:31.080 they be feeling that in countries where they have more 0:26:31.160 --> 0:26:34.320 free time than they did a generation ago? And the 0:26:34.359 --> 0:26:37.920 author argues that quote, the paradox of increased leisure time 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:42.040 and feelings of hurriedness become understandable when the focus is 0:26:42.080 --> 0:26:45.160 shifted from the total amount of free time and duration 0:26:45.280 --> 0:26:50.480 of activities to qualitative changes in rhythms resulting from various 0:26:50.600 --> 0:26:55.600 interdependencies between mundane activities. So it may be not so 0:26:55.680 --> 0:26:58.439 much how much time we have, but how time is 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:01.879 structured in our lives. So, first of all, just to 0:27:01.920 --> 0:27:05.480 review a few interesting empirical findings on people's time use 0:27:05.520 --> 0:27:08.200 in general. And again remember this was published in twenty ten, 0:27:08.359 --> 0:27:11.840 so findings coming in after that could change the picture somewhat. 0:27:12.680 --> 0:27:15.119 But first of all, as a note, it should be 0:27:15.160 --> 0:27:19.359 said that accounting for people's time use has presented more 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:23.520 methodological difficulties than you might at first imagine. So time 0:27:23.560 --> 0:27:27.440 youse studies are often structured so that you sort your 0:27:27.480 --> 0:27:30.679 time use into episodes of activity that fit into various 0:27:30.720 --> 0:27:35.640 categories like paid work or housework or rest or free time. 0:27:36.280 --> 0:27:38.920 But studies found that there were some uses of time 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:41.840 that were kind of difficult to sort into categories, and 0:27:41.920 --> 0:27:45.960 some events recognized as episodes by the subjects that researchers 0:27:45.960 --> 0:27:50.080 didn't anticipate, such as Swedish researchers in the nineties discovering 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:53.560 that lots of people regard quote coming home as a 0:27:53.720 --> 0:27:56.640 unique time use episode in the day. Where does that 0:27:56.680 --> 0:27:58.840 fit in? You know, the time you're arriving at your 0:27:58.840 --> 0:28:02.080 house and getting settled. So this kind of research isn't 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:06.560 as easy as it might sound. Still, there were a 0:28:06.600 --> 0:28:09.879 selection of interesting findings I wanted to mention. One was 0:28:09.960 --> 0:28:14.040 that international comparative studies in the seventies and early eighties 0:28:14.080 --> 0:28:17.440 found that time use varied a lot more based on 0:28:17.560 --> 0:28:22.280 the level of economic development than on the economic system. 0:28:22.520 --> 0:28:25.320 So people might have imagined, going, you know, your hypothesis 0:28:25.359 --> 0:28:28.439 might be that time use is very different on different 0:28:28.480 --> 0:28:31.600 sides of the Iron Curtain. But instead they found that 0:28:31.720 --> 0:28:36.040 superpower countries both communists and capitalists, had similar patterns of 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:38.320 time use. People used their time much the same way 0:28:38.360 --> 0:28:40.960 as in the United States and the Soviet Union, but 0:28:41.040 --> 0:28:44.360 these patterns were much different than how people spent their 0:28:44.360 --> 0:28:47.360 time in less developed economies on both sides of the 0:28:47.360 --> 0:28:49.880 Cold War divide. And I think that would kind of 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:52.640 stack up with the future shock claim that changes in 0:28:52.720 --> 0:28:56.120 technology filter down to changes in the rest of culture 0:28:56.520 --> 0:28:58.800 and in work and in family life, and this is 0:28:58.880 --> 0:29:03.520 largely what's guiding changes in how people experience time. Okay, 0:29:04.040 --> 0:29:07.480 there's also some research indicating that in Western countries time 0:29:07.600 --> 0:29:12.280 use is converging on more uniformity across different demographic categories. 0:29:12.640 --> 0:29:15.400 So like it used to be that men and women 0:29:15.520 --> 0:29:19.000 spend their time in more different ways, some studies apparently 0:29:19.040 --> 0:29:23.360 find that their patterns are coming closer together, though, and 0:29:23.400 --> 0:29:26.000 the same would be true of differences between social classes. 0:29:26.480 --> 0:29:28.840 Though even though there might be a trend in the 0:29:28.840 --> 0:29:32.280 direction of more similarity over time, differences remain and Pantsar 0:29:32.360 --> 0:29:35.719 also cites research finding that on average, men still had 0:29:35.800 --> 0:29:38.160 more free time than women, and the rich still had 0:29:38.160 --> 0:29:41.479 more than the poor, But overall time use studies of 0:29:41.480 --> 0:29:46.320 this sort revealed that changes between nineteen seventy and this 0:29:46.400 --> 0:29:50.000 paper in twenty ten are fairly modest in terms of 0:29:50.080 --> 0:29:54.400 overall time use, with one major exception one big change, 0:29:54.800 --> 0:29:58.479 which is TV. One of the biggest changes that can 0:29:58.520 --> 0:30:01.240 be tracked since the time of Future Shock is the 0:30:01.360 --> 0:30:05.640 average change in the amount of time daily spent watching television. 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:09.040 People on average across all Western countries spend a lot 0:30:09.040 --> 0:30:12.240 of their free time watching TV. Quote in almost all 0:30:12.320 --> 0:30:15.720 Western countries, the share of television from the roughly six 0:30:15.760 --> 0:30:18.920 hours of daily free time is nowadays about a third, 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:24.200 that is over two hours. Increasingly, TV watching serves as 0:30:24.240 --> 0:30:28.080 a kind of indicator of the flexibility of daily schedules, 0:30:28.080 --> 0:30:30.800 So when there is more free time, TV watching sort 0:30:30.840 --> 0:30:34.000 of expands to absorb that time, and when people have 0:30:34.080 --> 0:30:35.960 more things to do and they have less free time. 0:30:36.080 --> 0:30:38.600 TV watching is cut to make the time. 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:41.120 I mean we do, or at least we have been 0:30:41.160 --> 0:30:43.880 living in an age of prestige television though, I mean 0:30:43.960 --> 0:30:46.719 the golden age of television with so many great shows. 0:30:47.400 --> 0:30:49.520 Surely that is what we're all spending our time on. 0:30:49.560 --> 0:30:52.080 We're watching the great shows. 0:30:53.080 --> 0:30:55.440 Yeah, you get Yeah, you gotta make fun make time 0:30:55.440 --> 0:30:56.320 for the fun shows too. 0:30:56.960 --> 0:31:00.640 Yeah. But Pantzer also says that the inner, of course, 0:31:00.680 --> 0:31:03.920 is changing these patterns. Again, this was twenty ten, so 0:31:04.080 --> 0:31:07.720 it seems very likely that the Internet is increasingly filling 0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:08.600 time that used. 0:31:08.480 --> 0:31:09.720 To be devoted to TV. 0:31:09.840 --> 0:31:12.560 So maybe today people spend a lot of the time 0:31:12.600 --> 0:31:16.240 that used to be devoted to TV scrolling social media instead. 0:31:16.920 --> 0:31:19.440 Step up. I don't think so. 0:31:19.920 --> 0:31:23.760 However, these types of studies have real limits because, for example, 0:31:23.840 --> 0:31:27.560 they give an oversimplified picture of what each of these 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:31.360 classes of activities really means. What about when you are 0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:34.680 doing work, like your paid job work on a laptop 0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:37.760 and you're texting with a friend and watching TV at 0:31:37.760 --> 0:31:40.920 the same time. What about when you're watching TV while 0:31:40.920 --> 0:31:43.920 you're cooking dinner for your family. What about while when 0:31:43.960 --> 0:31:46.520 you're like trying to relax and so you're trying to 0:31:46.520 --> 0:31:50.120 have rest or free time, but you're constantly being interrupted 0:31:50.160 --> 0:31:53.080 every few minutes by pings from work, email, or a 0:31:53.120 --> 0:31:55.440 crying baby that needs to be soothed back to sleep. 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:58.880 How do you measure or categorize these types of time 0:31:59.000 --> 0:32:03.440 use and and understand their qualitative effect on life? So 0:32:03.720 --> 0:32:07.000 Pantsar says it's probably more important to look at quote 0:32:07.040 --> 0:32:12.360 the quality of time spent, and especially the inner structure 0:32:12.400 --> 0:32:16.600 of time use or the architecture of time. So the 0:32:16.640 --> 0:32:18.800 author here says that there are a lot of studies 0:32:18.800 --> 0:32:23.040 indicating that when people feel stress related to their time use, 0:32:23.760 --> 0:32:26.640 a lot of it seems to come from dissatisfaction with 0:32:26.800 --> 0:32:30.200 the way time is organized, rather than like just how 0:32:30.240 --> 0:32:33.320 much free time you do or don't have. People seem 0:32:33.360 --> 0:32:35.440 to feel more stressed when their time is spent in 0:32:35.480 --> 0:32:40.120 a way that is quote externally directed, being largely reactive 0:32:40.280 --> 0:32:43.840 to continual surprises. So I'm imagining you know when your 0:32:43.840 --> 0:32:47.040 time is spent in a way that you did not 0:32:47.360 --> 0:32:50.800 deliberately and autonomously choose, it's taken up by a bunch 0:32:50.840 --> 0:32:55.200 of unpredictable stimuli or tasks or bids for your attention, 0:32:55.640 --> 0:32:58.400 that you feel like you are obligated to react to 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:00.440 and don't know what they're going to be ahead of 0:33:00.440 --> 0:33:02.840 time or when they're going to come in. This can 0:33:02.920 --> 0:33:05.440 of course be true of the work life, especially for 0:33:05.520 --> 0:33:08.120 certain professions, but also true of home life, especially for 0:33:08.200 --> 0:33:14.080 people responsible for home and childcare and time use. Organize 0:33:14.080 --> 0:33:17.160 this way creates a sense of urgency and sometimes a 0:33:17.240 --> 0:33:21.120 lack of autonomy, leading to feelings of hurriedness and stress. 0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:25.560 You know, for a hyper streamlined version of this, I 0:33:25.600 --> 0:33:29.440 know my own brain reacts exactly this way. It work 0:33:29.600 --> 0:33:34.640 like My sense of stress with work is almost perfectly 0:33:34.680 --> 0:33:39.200 correlated to like how many unexpected emails and extra kinds 0:33:39.240 --> 0:33:42.120 of tasks are coming in asking me to focus on 0:33:42.160 --> 0:33:46.320 something other than like my main work. And likewise at home, 0:33:46.440 --> 0:33:50.520 I feel a lot less stress about one big housework 0:33:50.600 --> 0:33:54.320 project that I chose to do, versus like a bunch 0:33:54.360 --> 0:33:57.000 of problems that keep popping up without warning that I 0:33:57.080 --> 0:33:58.720 have to do something about immediately. 0:33:59.320 --> 0:34:02.680 That's a problem about about home ownership. Though. All you 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:04.960 do is you get all those little pop up problems 0:34:05.480 --> 0:34:07.760 one after the other in addition to the big ones 0:34:07.760 --> 0:34:08.720 that you know are coming. 0:34:09.920 --> 0:34:13.560 So Pantser calls this the number of quote action episodes 0:34:13.600 --> 0:34:16.279 that our daily time use is broken up into, and 0:34:16.440 --> 0:34:19.480 that the number of action episodes is likely to just 0:34:19.600 --> 0:34:23.680 keep increasing. The differences in these numbers already correlate with 0:34:23.800 --> 0:34:27.080 differences that we see in people's level of stress about 0:34:27.080 --> 0:34:27.680 time use. 0:34:28.120 --> 0:34:28.560 Quote. 0:34:28.640 --> 0:34:32.440 At present, women's time is divided into more pieces than men's, 0:34:32.480 --> 0:34:35.399 which perhaps explains why women are more stressed than men 0:34:35.560 --> 0:34:38.719 about their time use. This trend is strengthened by the 0:34:38.760 --> 0:34:42.640 fact that the overlapping of episodes has increased, especially with women. 0:34:43.719 --> 0:34:46.239 And so when we look at this idea about the 0:34:46.360 --> 0:34:49.480 quality or the inner structure of time use, we can 0:34:49.520 --> 0:34:55.600 find empirical research documenting several changes, and Pantser summarizes them 0:34:55.680 --> 0:34:59.000 into a table of five main trends. First of all, 0:34:59.080 --> 0:35:02.000 studies find that in the recent decades, time use is 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:07.000 becoming more irregular. Just one example of time use becoming 0:35:07.000 --> 0:35:11.840 more irregular a shift on average from predictable established meal 0:35:11.920 --> 0:35:16.280 times to unpredictable ad hoc sessions of eating or snacking, 0:35:16.320 --> 0:35:19.720 which occur at different times and last for different amounts 0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:22.319 of time. I will say this is certainly true in 0:35:22.360 --> 0:35:26.160 my life. I think when I was younger, I ate 0:35:26.520 --> 0:35:30.760 at more predictable meal times. And I don't know, maybe 0:35:30.800 --> 0:35:34.800 just that this is something personal, but certainly my eating 0:35:34.840 --> 0:35:37.120 schedule is way more irregular than it used to be. 0:35:37.719 --> 0:35:39.640 Oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I feel my mine's 0:35:39.640 --> 0:35:42.000 pretty We run a tight ship around here. Things are 0:35:41.920 --> 0:35:46.600 pretty solid. But that being said, with a child, sometimes 0:35:47.000 --> 0:35:49.120 it does take a long time to finish these meals. 0:35:49.120 --> 0:35:52.200 I don't know, they're still working out exactly why this 0:35:52.320 --> 0:35:55.120 is the case, but like, sometimes it's like a fifteen 0:35:55.120 --> 0:35:56.919 minute meal. Other times it's like, all right, we're about 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:59.640 the inner hour two of dinner. We don't have time 0:35:59.640 --> 0:35:59.880 for this. 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:02.759 Another example I thought of, I think people used to 0:36:02.800 --> 0:36:08.160 have more regularized news consumption sessions on average. On average, 0:36:08.160 --> 0:36:11.319 people used to have more likely like a standard time 0:36:11.360 --> 0:36:14.640 for reading the newspaper or watching the evening news. Now, 0:36:14.719 --> 0:36:17.680 following the news has become a more irregular, ad hoc 0:36:17.760 --> 0:36:21.640 activity that occurs at less predictable times throughout the day 0:36:21.719 --> 0:36:24.240 and fills in other bits of free time. 0:36:24.840 --> 0:36:27.880 Which is, for a lot, if not most, people, not 0:36:28.000 --> 0:36:32.239 a good model. I mean, sometimes your profession requires you 0:36:32.480 --> 0:36:36.400 to stay on the pulse of the news twenty four 0:36:36.440 --> 0:36:39.400 to seven. But I know for a lot of people, 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:43.120 like one of a big bit of like therapeutic advice 0:36:43.239 --> 0:36:47.479 has been, hey, just pick a certain time to check 0:36:47.520 --> 0:36:50.160 the news, or find a way where you're getting your 0:36:50.200 --> 0:36:53.600 news via say a newsletter or something to that effect, 0:36:53.840 --> 0:36:56.960 so that it's not just you're just constantly dipping in, 0:36:57.120 --> 0:37:00.520 constantly diving into your news app feed or or worse, 0:37:00.600 --> 0:37:04.200 you know, your social media related news feed, whatever the 0:37:04.239 --> 0:37:06.759 case may be. Like setting aside a particular time and 0:37:06.800 --> 0:37:08.839 saying this is when I will get the news, and 0:37:08.880 --> 0:37:10.200 then I will get it again tomorrow. 0:37:11.200 --> 0:37:13.480 I am not a mental health professional, but I think 0:37:13.520 --> 0:37:17.080 that is really solid advice. I think confining your news 0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:21.160 consumption to regularize time periods rather than just like looking 0:37:21.200 --> 0:37:24.319 at the news in idle moments, is much better for 0:37:24.360 --> 0:37:24.760 your brain. 0:37:25.360 --> 0:37:27.160 I know in my experience, a big one has been 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:30.959 cutting out this whole model where if I'm in the car, 0:37:31.120 --> 0:37:32.840 I'll probably have the news on and listen to the 0:37:32.840 --> 0:37:35.440 news for a bit. You know, there are a lot 0:37:35.440 --> 0:37:39.360 of great news programs on the radio and on public 0:37:39.440 --> 0:37:43.000 radio that I enjoy a lot, and I still may 0:37:43.040 --> 0:37:47.799 listen to them occasionally. But I felt myself evening out 0:37:47.840 --> 0:37:49.959 a bit when I started leaning more into like, okay, 0:37:49.960 --> 0:37:52.359 I'm I'm gonna listen to music, or I'm gonna put 0:37:52.360 --> 0:37:55.840 on an audio book. If I need something that's non musical, 0:37:55.960 --> 0:37:59.120 let's do an audiobook instead and set aside time for 0:37:59.200 --> 0:38:01.000 checking out on the news some other time. 0:38:01.719 --> 0:38:03.799 I think that's a very good strategy. Okay, so that's 0:38:03.840 --> 0:38:07.000 the first thing. Studies find time use becoming more irregular. 0:38:07.080 --> 0:38:12.080 Second empirical finding time use is becoming more fragmented. We 0:38:12.160 --> 0:38:17.440 are spending less unbroken time devoted to single activities. There 0:38:17.520 --> 0:38:22.600 is more frequent switching between different activities and intrusions of 0:38:22.640 --> 0:38:26.360 one activity on another. I think about myself, and again, 0:38:27.080 --> 0:38:30.160 it's totally possible this may have more to do with personal, 0:38:30.200 --> 0:38:33.200 individual life changes unique to me than changes in the 0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:36.719 broader culture. I don't know. But still I'm reminded of how, 0:38:36.840 --> 0:38:40.239 like ten fifteen years ago, I would really often, just 0:38:40.520 --> 0:38:44.080 frequently sit down and watch a whole movie. I would 0:38:44.120 --> 0:38:47.800 just watch it through from beginning to end, with no interruptions. 0:38:48.520 --> 0:38:51.160 And in recent year, I mean, obviously now I have 0:38:51.200 --> 0:38:53.239 a child, but even before I had a child, in 0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:55.920 recent years, I don't know, the past five years, that 0:38:56.080 --> 0:39:00.200 idea just seems ludicrous, like it's just a given, and 0:39:00.239 --> 0:39:02.799 that there will be interruptions of some sort to the 0:39:02.800 --> 0:39:06.160 movie watching experience. I'll need to break the viewing into 0:39:06.239 --> 0:39:09.560 multiple sittings. Maybe I'll need to go focus on something else. 0:39:09.680 --> 0:39:12.000 I'll get an email or text or something I need 0:39:12.000 --> 0:39:15.400 to respond to, or just something happens that prevents me 0:39:15.440 --> 0:39:18.400 from sitting down for two hours and paying attention to 0:39:18.520 --> 0:39:19.120 one thing. 0:39:20.360 --> 0:39:24.080 Yeah, sometimes I found this sometimes in my own experience, 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:27.160 And I certainly don't mind breaking up a movie watching 0:39:27.200 --> 0:39:29.920 one half one day and one half the next. Sometimes 0:39:29.920 --> 0:39:32.080 it's broken up a lot more than that. But at 0:39:32.120 --> 0:39:34.480 times where there have been times where I've watched an 0:39:34.640 --> 0:39:37.160 entire movie or the majority of a movie in one setting, 0:39:37.560 --> 0:39:40.520 And it's a notable experience when that happens, Like generally, 0:39:40.520 --> 0:39:42.960 it's a testament to how good the movie is that 0:39:43.040 --> 0:39:45.000 it was able to like suck me in enough that 0:39:45.440 --> 0:39:48.920 I was able to not get distracted by various other tasks. 0:39:49.320 --> 0:39:52.399 Yeah, it feels. It feels significant when it happens now. 0:39:53.200 --> 0:39:56.520 And the author of this paper relates this finding about 0:39:56.680 --> 0:40:02.400 time use becoming increasingly fragmented to studies comparing something comparing 0:40:02.400 --> 0:40:06.400 a couple of concepts called casual leisure versus serious leisure, 0:40:06.920 --> 0:40:09.600 and the idea here is that they're actually different types 0:40:09.640 --> 0:40:13.720 of leisure activities. There's casual leisure, which does not require 0:40:13.760 --> 0:40:17.920 serious concentration, can be easily interrupted, broken into pieces, and 0:40:17.960 --> 0:40:23.160 there's serious leisure, which requires concentration and has some hierarchical elements. 0:40:23.840 --> 0:40:26.960 In my own case, I think of like scrolling junk 0:40:27.000 --> 0:40:30.800 on my phone as casual leisure versus playing and recording 0:40:30.880 --> 0:40:36.480 music as serious leisure. I get much much more enjoyment 0:40:36.520 --> 0:40:39.279 and fulfillment from the latter. I would really rather be 0:40:39.360 --> 0:40:43.120 spending my time doing that, but I often default to 0:40:43.200 --> 0:40:46.319 the former, to the scrolling, because I know that I 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:48.759 only have a short amount of free time and I 0:40:48.960 --> 0:40:52.000 expect to be interrupted by something, so I really can't 0:40:52.160 --> 0:40:57.080 get into the committed concentration state necessary for music. 0:40:58.200 --> 0:41:01.200 Yeah. Yeah, I also find this in my own life. 0:41:01.280 --> 0:41:04.600 Like for me, casual leisure is often something like painting 0:41:04.640 --> 0:41:07.400 a little bit on some minis, which are often on 0:41:07.440 --> 0:41:09.560 a like a tray next to my work computer. So 0:41:09.960 --> 0:41:12.520 I'll find on a good day, I may find, you know, 0:41:12.560 --> 0:41:15.799 a couple of moments to sort of switch seats and 0:41:16.040 --> 0:41:18.839 do a little bit of painting and then clean everything up, 0:41:18.920 --> 0:41:20.439 let that dry go back to what I was doing, 0:41:20.480 --> 0:41:22.000 you know, And I like that. I like having a 0:41:22.080 --> 0:41:24.319 casual leisure activity that I can dip in and out of. 0:41:25.280 --> 0:41:28.680 It certainly fits in with like a you know, busy lifestyle, 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:32.280 but yeah, that serious leisure when you can is sometimes 0:41:32.280 --> 0:41:35.720 the kind of thing you you kind of fantasize about, 0:41:35.760 --> 0:41:38.399 like you imagine yourself locked in a room with your 0:41:38.480 --> 0:41:44.000 casual leisure activities where you can only do that one thing. Goodness. 0:41:44.080 --> 0:41:46.560 I think I think of things like, you know, reading 0:41:46.760 --> 0:41:49.040 a good book on a beach being in a way 0:41:49.120 --> 0:41:51.040 kind of a serious leisure activity where it's like, what 0:41:51.040 --> 0:41:53.840 am I doing for the next hour or two? This? 0:41:53.840 --> 0:41:54.719 This is what I'm doing. 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:57.840 I think when we mentioned in our Weird House Cinema 0:41:57.880 --> 0:42:01.399 episode on The Never Ending Story that the thing about 0:42:01.440 --> 0:42:05.080 the movie I remember from childhood being even more exciting 0:42:05.120 --> 0:42:08.240 than any of the fantasy elements, was just the idea 0:42:08.360 --> 0:42:10.680 that this kid takes a book and he goes and 0:42:10.760 --> 0:42:12.880 hides in a room and nobody knows he's there, and 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:15.759 he just reads the book all day and nobody comes 0:42:15.760 --> 0:42:17.239 in and tells him that he has to go do 0:42:17.320 --> 0:42:19.920 something else. And I remember at the time that just 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:23.560 feeling magical, and it still does make me feel that way. 0:42:23.920 --> 0:42:25.880 I guess one of the problems that arises out of 0:42:25.880 --> 0:42:28.160 all this is what you're probably not dealing with just 0:42:28.840 --> 0:42:32.880 a this this division between casual leisure and serious leisure 0:42:32.960 --> 0:42:35.120 and having to pin more on casual leisure. But also 0:42:35.239 --> 0:42:39.120 it's like casual work versus serious work, right, and the 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:42.359 day ends up getting broken into like a bunch of 0:42:42.600 --> 0:42:45.799 like short bursts of activity as opposed to like kind 0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:49.000 of like deep focus, deep research sort of work that 0:42:49.080 --> 0:42:51.720 many many jobs require in one form or another. 0:42:52.080 --> 0:43:04.600 Yeah, okay, but anyway, that's time is becoming more fragmented 0:43:04.640 --> 0:43:06.640 this second finding third empirical finding. 0:43:06.760 --> 0:43:11.839 Time time use is becoming more overlapped. People are increasingly 0:43:11.840 --> 0:43:15.280 trying to do multiple different things at the same time. 0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:17.960 And there may be a few exceptions, but for the 0:43:18.000 --> 0:43:20.120 most part, if you're trying to do multiple things at 0:43:20.120 --> 0:43:21.960 the same time, you're probably not doing either one of 0:43:22.000 --> 0:43:22.640 them very well. 0:43:23.280 --> 0:43:26.040 Yeah, yeah, I mean at the same time, it's like 0:43:26.080 --> 0:43:29.239 you want to catch up on your podcast listening. I mean, 0:43:30.200 --> 0:43:32.520 what do you do You've put those earbuds in whilst 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:33.960 you're doing other things, right. 0:43:34.080 --> 0:43:37.520 Yeah, yeah, well, and that does highlight actually I mean, 0:43:37.760 --> 0:43:41.600 there are certain things that are easier to do simultaneously 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:43.920 than others. Yeah, like listening to an audiobook or a 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:46.600 podcast or something while you're say, cleaning up the kitchen 0:43:46.680 --> 0:43:50.080 that's something I do often, or doing other kind of chores, 0:43:50.200 --> 0:43:53.160 wrote chores around the house. I think that's a different 0:43:53.280 --> 0:43:56.560 kind of brain division, where you know, the divided attention 0:43:56.680 --> 0:43:58.960 doesn't suffer too much. I think where it really does suffer, 0:43:58.960 --> 0:44:01.319 at least in my case, is like, I don't know, 0:44:01.440 --> 0:44:05.160 trying to work on something while also paying attention to 0:44:05.200 --> 0:44:05.880 something else. 0:44:06.239 --> 0:44:09.359 Like yeah, just like you're cooking, say you're cooking at 0:44:09.360 --> 0:44:12.000 the same time while also trying to research for something 0:44:12.040 --> 0:44:14.120 you know, where you're like, okay, that has fifteen minutes 0:44:14.120 --> 0:44:16.160 put on that timer. Now I have fifteen minutes to 0:44:16.200 --> 0:44:19.439 do this other task. But you're never really completely into 0:44:19.480 --> 0:44:21.640 that other task because you know, you have the stove 0:44:21.760 --> 0:44:22.680 running that sort of thing. 0:44:23.120 --> 0:44:25.200 Now, a lot of times in people's lives, it just 0:44:25.280 --> 0:44:28.400 seems like you have no choice but to multitask because 0:44:28.680 --> 0:44:30.360 you know you've got two things you've got to do 0:44:30.480 --> 0:44:33.040 and you only have a certain amount of time. So 0:44:33.360 --> 0:44:36.560 this is just something that is increasingly true about modern life. 0:44:36.600 --> 0:44:41.640 Apparently more and more tasks are taking place simultaneously. Another 0:44:41.760 --> 0:44:45.480 change that studies have found, which is that time use 0:44:45.600 --> 0:44:49.480 and everyday routines are shifting to new places. Just one 0:44:49.520 --> 0:44:52.680 example here, people are increasingly trying to do certain time 0:44:52.840 --> 0:44:57.120 use activities in the car while commuting that maybe used 0:44:57.160 --> 0:45:00.080 to take place in the home or somewhere else. And 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:03.760 then finally last the fifth finding here is quote productivity 0:45:03.840 --> 0:45:08.880 gains and rationalization achieved by new technology does not generate 0:45:09.000 --> 0:45:13.600 free time, but rather heightens standards. So I think the 0:45:13.680 --> 0:45:16.560 illustration here as you imagine some new labor saving device 0:45:16.880 --> 0:45:19.480 that makes it easier to get your work done faster, 0:45:20.000 --> 0:45:22.080 or makes it easier to clean your home. Maybe you 0:45:22.160 --> 0:45:24.439 get a new appliance that does some kind of chore 0:45:24.640 --> 0:45:26.239 for you that you used to have to do with 0:45:26.320 --> 0:45:29.600 your hands. Does this generate more new free time in 0:45:29.680 --> 0:45:33.719 your life? The answer is generally no. Instead, it increases 0:45:33.840 --> 0:45:38.560 how much people report that they are expected to accomplish whatever, 0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:41.520 you know, whether that's like paid work or housework or whatever. 0:45:42.000 --> 0:45:44.800 So there's just sort of like an increasing standard of 0:45:44.880 --> 0:45:46.279 what you feel you have to do. 0:45:48.080 --> 0:45:50.319 Yeah, it's like the robot is cleaning the floor now, 0:45:51.680 --> 0:45:53.600 and now I owe it to the universe to work 0:45:53.680 --> 0:45:56.640 more to make up for like my laziness or something, 0:45:56.680 --> 0:45:58.080 you know, I don't know, like sometimes there's kind of 0:45:58.080 --> 0:46:02.480 this weird like element of guilt associated to it, you know, 0:46:02.640 --> 0:46:05.600 like if I'm not working, if I'm not fixing something, 0:46:06.120 --> 0:46:10.760 then I'm somehow like cheating the universe somehow. 0:46:11.360 --> 0:46:13.279 So there are some other sections of this paper that 0:46:13.360 --> 0:46:15.480 are kind of interesting, but I'm not really going to 0:46:15.520 --> 0:46:18.840 get into stuff about like rhythm analysis and relationship of 0:46:18.920 --> 0:46:22.160 like biological rhythms to time use in life and stuff. 0:46:23.120 --> 0:46:27.200 But one of Panther's points here is that while the 0:46:27.280 --> 0:46:30.040 Tofflers may have gotten plenty of things wrong, their core 0:46:30.160 --> 0:46:35.080 predictions about coming changes in time use are essentially borne 0:46:35.120 --> 0:46:39.360 out by the empirical research. They were pretty good at 0:46:39.440 --> 0:46:42.880 predicting what was going to happen with time, the increasing 0:46:43.000 --> 0:46:48.840 fragmentation of our time, increasing multitasking, increasing irregularity, shortening of 0:46:48.960 --> 0:46:51.960 time intervals for doing things that this is basically what 0:46:52.160 --> 0:46:55.240 has been found by most of the research on this subject. 0:46:55.640 --> 0:46:58.279 Our time use has become more irregular, more fragmented, and 0:46:58.400 --> 0:47:01.719 more overlapped. And this it does correspond roughly with people 0:47:01.840 --> 0:47:05.440 saying that they feel more hurried and stressed out about time. 0:47:06.200 --> 0:47:09.759 And I think it's quite plausible that changes in technology, 0:47:09.960 --> 0:47:13.400 and then downstream from that, changes in the economy, downstream 0:47:13.480 --> 0:47:16.359 changes in culture, the culture of work and of home 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:20.600 life and all that are plausibly to blame for this. Now, interestingly, 0:47:20.880 --> 0:47:23.799 here the author does point out one thing about these 0:47:23.920 --> 0:47:28.200 time you studies that they do think that the Toffler's 0:47:28.239 --> 0:47:31.560 got wrong. So Panser says, quote on one point, Toafler 0:47:31.760 --> 0:47:35.040 was clearly wrong, according to our present knowledge. He expected 0:47:35.080 --> 0:47:38.759 the society of urgency would kill human interaction and in 0:47:38.880 --> 0:47:42.280 particular lead to a weakening of the position of the family, 0:47:42.480 --> 0:47:45.720 the home, the children, and the spouse. In fact, however, 0:47:45.840 --> 0:47:49.600 and rather surprisingly, both time you studies and value studies 0:47:49.680 --> 0:47:53.280 conducted over the past few decades tell us about distinct 0:47:53.480 --> 0:47:57.080 growth of family and home centeredness in the Western world. 0:47:57.400 --> 0:48:00.760 And then a number of studies are cited here. Furthermore, 0:48:00.840 --> 0:48:04.480 the new information technology has not moved time use away 0:48:04.520 --> 0:48:08.440 from the home either. It has done the opposite. So 0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:11.560 I thought that was really interesting. The Tofflers thought that 0:48:12.400 --> 0:48:15.760 the technological environment of the super industrial age would weaken 0:48:15.880 --> 0:48:18.879 family connections and get people to spend more and more 0:48:19.000 --> 0:48:23.279 time coming and going outside the home. Empirically, people are 0:48:23.320 --> 0:48:26.920 spending more time at home than ever. Perhaps it did 0:48:27.040 --> 0:48:30.520 weaken some relationships, Like I think there might be some 0:48:31.000 --> 0:48:35.440 research indicating a weakening of friendships outside the home and 0:48:35.760 --> 0:48:39.040 maybe made people less likely to see friends in places 0:48:39.120 --> 0:48:42.440 outside the home. And maybe now people instead are spending 0:48:42.520 --> 0:48:45.200 more of their free time like at home with the 0:48:45.320 --> 0:48:48.319 internet instead of going out and seeing friends and doing 0:48:48.440 --> 0:48:51.480 things with friends. But I thought that was interesting that 0:48:51.680 --> 0:48:55.560 it didn't change, It didn't weaken the home based relationships 0:48:55.600 --> 0:48:56.120 the way they. 0:48:56.040 --> 0:48:58.960 Predicted, right right, That is interesting. 0:48:59.680 --> 0:49:02.360 But in the end of this paper, Panther says that 0:49:02.560 --> 0:49:07.040 the empirical studies on time use show that Tofler was 0:49:07.400 --> 0:49:11.920 mostly correct about our time quote. In the future, if 0:49:11.960 --> 0:49:14.879 we believe in Toafler, many of our repetitive everyday life 0:49:14.960 --> 0:49:18.600 routines will disappear as our weekly rhythm of work breaks 0:49:18.719 --> 0:49:22.560 up with the new communication technology accelerating our pace rather 0:49:22.680 --> 0:49:26.399 than relaxing it. The duration and number of episodes, their 0:49:26.560 --> 0:49:30.640 overlaps and mutual couplings, their construction and placement in time 0:49:30.760 --> 0:49:34.400 and space, and opportunities to affect the placement of activities 0:49:34.480 --> 0:49:40.320 are to the greatest extent, well being issues. So pointing 0:49:40.360 --> 0:49:42.600 out again that like this isn't just sort of like 0:49:42.760 --> 0:49:46.600 neutral information, that like studies about how we use our time, 0:49:46.719 --> 0:49:51.040 the quality of time spent, and how time relates to say, 0:49:51.080 --> 0:49:55.560 our expectations about time use. This affects our quality of 0:49:55.640 --> 0:49:56.840 life and our mental health. 0:49:57.880 --> 0:49:59.800 Yeah, there are. It kind of comes back to this 0:50:00.000 --> 0:50:02.800 idea that, yeah, that we we are adaptive, but we 0:50:02.920 --> 0:50:06.960 are not so adaptive that we can change in you know, 0:50:07.040 --> 0:50:09.839 in real time to anything like there are there are 0:50:09.920 --> 0:50:13.200 hard limits in place. It would seem to just what 0:50:13.480 --> 0:50:16.000 we can roll with as as creatures. 0:50:16.640 --> 0:50:18.759 So I feel somewhat vindicated in that one of the 0:50:18.800 --> 0:50:22.480 parts of the book that felt strongest to me does 0:50:22.560 --> 0:50:25.040 seem to be in an at least large part born 0:50:25.120 --> 0:50:28.359 out by subsequent empirical research. But we could come back 0:50:28.440 --> 0:50:33.160 to the submarine schools and the organ transplant murder gangs. 0:50:33.440 --> 0:50:37.839 Oh yes, the modular temporary humans yeah, and social yeah. Yeah, 0:50:37.880 --> 0:50:40.000 There's a lot lot more to talk about in that vein, 0:50:40.600 --> 0:50:43.239 and and also in the next episode, I do want 0:50:43.239 --> 0:50:46.800 to talk a bit about some of the maladaptive coping 0:50:46.840 --> 0:50:48.560 strategies that they lay out in the book, which I 0:50:48.600 --> 0:50:51.880 thought we're very insightful, like talking about, well, how do 0:50:51.960 --> 0:50:55.280 we how do we find ourselves or potentially find ourselves 0:50:55.360 --> 0:51:00.120 dealing with future shock without actually dealing with it in 0:51:01.320 --> 0:51:05.040 an actual beneficial manner. So yeah, we'll be back with 0:51:05.200 --> 0:51:09.120 at least a third episode on future shock, and yeah, 0:51:09.360 --> 0:51:11.560 in the meantime, we'll look forward to hearing from anyone 0:51:11.600 --> 0:51:13.840 out there if you have thoughts on this general concept 0:51:14.239 --> 0:51:17.320 or some of these related topics we've talked about, like 0:51:17.960 --> 0:51:21.399 time usage, leisure, activity, and so forth. 0:51:21.800 --> 0:51:24.839 I agree that the section about the coping strategies is interesting. Yeah, 0:51:24.840 --> 0:51:25.920 I'm excited to get into that. 0:51:26.520 --> 0:51:28.680 All right, Well we'll go ahead and close it out here, 0:51:28.880 --> 0:51:30.600 but yeah, right in, we'd love to hear from you. 0:51:30.960 --> 0:51:33.600 Just a reminder that we are primarily a science podcast 0:51:33.680 --> 0:51:36.960 with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 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