Life in an Instant

By James C. Benerofe

02-11-2000

Welcome to the 21s' century! The computer is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century. Along with the computer and other technological advances life has changed tremendously in an incredibly short period of time. We are literally living from instant to instant. We have fast everything, there is fast food of course, there is fast weight loss, "Slim Fast," fast management as the book "The One Minute Manager " tells us, there is fast money with the instant lottery, instant winners and instant millionaires, and let us not forget the stock market with stocks increasing in value from a measly 20% to more than 200% resulting in instant financial geniuses. It is an "instant gratification" world out there. Is this world working?

There is not an instant answer. In fact, there are likely far more questions than there are answers. To be sure technology and computers have vastly improved our lives and I would not suggest that we get rid of them by any means but there are too many things that we are trying to do fast and if we don't start to pay serious attention, there are going to be catastrophic consequences. The governor of Illinois recently put a hold on executions in that state because he found an unusually high number of inmates on death row to be not guilty of the murders that they had been accused of. The death penalty is a form of instant justice. My point here is not to take a position for or against the death penalty but rather to point out that no matter what your position is on the issue, none of us are in favor of executing an innocent individual. I recently received a phone bill from one of the big phone companies and I had a question about it. I searched in vain for a telephone number on the bill that I could call to get an answer to my question. Alas there was no number. I resolved the question reasonably quickly because it did not relate to an over under or late payment. I 'did, however, have to deal with a voice mail system. Voice mail is, in my opinion one of the great technological disasters of the twentieth century. The amount of time that I have lost over the past year in coping with voice mail is uncomfortably significant. I have been told that voice mail will not go away. My instant suggestion to make voice mail life a little more palatable is to standardize voice mail systems. For example, if a medical facility uses a voice mail system the number 4 would mean that you get a direct line to a doctor, the number 5 would mean billing and so on. In other words, voice mail would be standardized within businesses, professions, and institutions nationwide. So when you call, AT&T, MCI, Sprint, all the voice mail prompt numbers are the same. Next is standardize telephone bills-no creative calling plans and all the same words to describe discounts or lower rates. We should also apply this concept to frequent flyer systems. Why I need a different frequent flyer number for every airline is beyond me. It would be a lot easier for me to have the same number and have separate code numbers for each airline.

I don't think that I have resolved the question of whether or not this new technological world is working but I have raised more questions and made some cogent observations. Before I conclude one more observation or theory-take your pick. A lot of information is being thrown at us. No where is this more evident than when we are driving our cars. We have radios-news, music, commercials, traffic and weather-telephones, cup holders, make-up mirrors and in many cars speedometers that show that the car has the ability to go 140 mph. There is a lot of talk about "road rage," reckless driving, speeding. My theory is that so much information is being thrown at the driver that the circuits in the brain can't process the information in an orderly fashion and the driver ends up engaging in randomly erratic emotional maneuvers-speeding, cutting off, or forgetting to signal a lane change. Stronger enforcement is one answer but design standards for cars needs serious attention. Speedometers showing the ability of the car to go 140 mph are ridiculous unless your driving a race car on a track. This is just a taste of the technological gluttony with which we are going to have to cope in the new century. The questions are endless and the answers are not easy, welcome to the 2 1St century.