Time compression

Sometime toward the end of the 80s, people started answering the greeting "how are you," with "busy" instead of the usual "good" or "fine" answers. The state of mind had become state of time. It was a trend that went hand in hand with the introduction of the cellphone, computer, fax and voicemail.

Today, our world revolves around fleeting images that are so 70s... so 1999... so last year... so yesterday... so one minute ago. It's becoming abundantly clear that time and its related meanings are morphing in a cloud of time-tunnel dust.

About one-fifth of Americans now vacation with their laptops, while about the same number check office messages or call in to see how things are going, a recent AP-Ipsos poll revealed. And when 5 million BlackBerry users lost their ability to send e-mail in April, the chorus of complaints and conspiracy theories resembled that of true addicts... "CrackBerry" addicts, that is. No wonder we sleep on average two hours less today than we did in the 1920s.

And the prognosis for getting more sleep looks doubtful. In fact, I predict that we'll sleep another hour less on average by the time we reach this century's 20s. Combine this with the fact that sleeping pill prescriptions have soared 60 percent since 2000 while energy drinks have come from nowhere to become a $7 billion global market, and you have sobering picture of life today.

It's abundantly clear that time compression has created a supercharged society of multitasking consumers enamored with instant gratification. Marketers should respect this ADD world by offering services that allow consumers to better manage their increasingly more valuable disposable time.

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