Technology-speeding up time

If it seems that things are happening faster as each day passes and it is becoming impossible to keep up with the pace of life and business, you are not only right, you are also not alone.

The distinct and sometimes frightening impression that everything is moving faster is not a symptom of old age, it is a reality driven by constant technological innovation.

Those were the days...

Remember the days before the fax machine? Correspondence was sent via the mail and we all simply waited a week to receive a client's posted reply to our original snail mail letter. The fax machine revolutionised the way businesses operated and suddenly communication became instant.

Remember the days before cellphones? If you were not at home or in the office, people simply had to wait until you got back.

Information overload

But today, communication is instant and overwhelming. Even the then revolutionary fax machine is outdated as people can instantly transmit documents to hundreds of people simultaneously at the click of a button. It is estimated that more than 2 000 000 e-mails are sent around the world every second.

Laptops, wireless and always connected Internet access, BlackBerrys and more ensure that we are constantly bombarded with electronic communications. It is not uncommon for people to receive 200 e-mails or more in a single day. Even if most of this is in fact spam, each e-mail requires attention and action, even if it simply means deleting it. Imagine the consternation in the office of the good old days if a worker was confronted with 200 letters or 200 faxes every single day!

In addition, we suffer from severe information overload as the available knowledge doubles every few years. Our scientific knowledge doubles every five years. Clinical knowledge is estimated to double every 18 months. It means that everything we know collectively today, will only be half of what we collectively will know in 2015.

As a result, it becomes almost impossible for anyone to keep up with all the latest information and research, even if they are simply focused on a single industry or niche market.

Always in touch

In addition to the deluge of information we face every day, our attention is constantly interrupted by endless phone calls, no matter where you are.

With the advent of cellphone technology, we are in touch 24/7. Gone are the days when your clients could only get hold of you during business hours and family members only phoned if they had something important to say. Even if you refuse to take the call, anyone can send you an SMS at any time. So popular is the SMS revolution that an estimated eight billion – that is 8 000 000 000 - SMSs are sent every day.

The bottom line is that we simply do more and more each day as technology advances at the speed of light. What took a week to do 20 years ago, can now be done in a matter of minutes. We now do in one day what used to be a month's worth of work.

So if you are feeling a little winded and disorientated by the speed at which it's all happening, know you are not alone. It is a global phenomenon. The only solution is to keep up with technology - so pull up a teenager and find out what technological revolutions you have missed in the last 24 hours.