Читать книгу Always Turned On - Jennifer Schneider - Страница 6

Have you ever watched a classic movie or read a nineteenth-century novel and been disappointed at the molasses-slow pace? Did you know that current television programs and movies have more and shorter scenes than those made just a few years ago? Rapid scene changes have become our entertainment norm. Inexorably, and without being aware of it, we have grown accustomed to a much faster pace in books, on television, and on the silver screen. And thanks to the Internet and other forms of digital technology, this quickening pace has spilled over into nearly every facet of our existence. These days we just don’t have the time or the patience to wait for much of anything. We want what we want and we want it right now, and digital technology obliges.

A hundred years ago the tempo of life was very different. A visit to a relative who lived ten miles away was a major trip. It required an entire weekend to get there, visit, and return. Today that’s a fifteen minute drive. A one week turnaround in response to a letter was once considered quick. Today, emails and texts arrive instantly and can be responded to in seconds. It used to be that major news events took many days to fully reach the public. For instance, after the “unsinkable” Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank in the north Atlantic on April 15, 1912, it was several days before most people in the United States were aware of the tragedy. In contrast, almost a century later, on January 15, 2009, when U.S. Airways flight 1549 crash landed in the Hudson River, much of the world watched the rescue of passengers either online or on television as it happened.