Entertaining Ourselves in Automation Nation

Is Faster Really Better?

Electrolux Vacuum Cleaner, Model 1205, 1969 - Advertising Postcard. Photo from Steve Shook on Flickr.

When I sit at my desk - proofreading, scanning emails, assessing a work dilemma - my right hand automatically jumps to my right cheek like a magnet drawn to a refrigerator. As I scroll and read and worry, my fingernails dig into my cheek - I scratch and pick at my blemishes and scars until my face is tomato red. This habit is of no service to me - it causes acne to sprawl across the right side of my face exclusively like an asymmetrical pepperoni pizza. One side is inflamed and engorged while the other remains unscathed. I know it’s an unsavory compulsion, but it’s a compulsion nonetheless. There’s something satisfying about feeding into destruction, something freeing about giving way to a vice. There’s relief in being able to scratch an itch - even if the discomfort would be better alleviated by a little self-discipline. I sport a smug smile as I launder my pillowcases and wash my face, knowing none of it will do me any good. What can I say? I eat from the hand that feeds.

I keep falling asleep after my alarm goes off because my phone rests by my head on my nightstand. As soon as my alarm blares, I silence it, set it back on the nightstand, and doze back off. In a few instances, I’ve set my phone on the opposite side of my room, compelling me to spring out of bed in a tangled bundle of sheets when it sounds its morning call. In those few times, I awaken much easier, but with far less comfort - and I don’t have my phone to stare at until the seconds before I sleep, the screen slamming on my nose bridge as I float in and out of consciousness.

I find it challenging to eat alone without watching an episode of a TV show or a YouTube video. I find it dull taking the subway without my AirPods tucked into my ears, blaring a song I’ve heard a thousand times as I wait for the train. Even as I make my breakfast, I stir my oatmeal to the rhythm of a podcast episode, drowning out organic thoughts with the thoughts of others. Every second of my day is an opportunity to be entertained. As Neil Postman predicted, I’m quite literally amusing myself to death.

So many are shocked by the rate at which our world appears to be accelerating. I find it all a bit funny because a changing pace is the nature of acceleration and the United States has historically had its arms simultaneously closed and flung wide open to change. The change that’s welcomed is the kind that will garner the most returns - it’s only a matter of time until progress of any kind is monetized. Positive acceleration curves upwards in a graph like the corners of one’s mouth in a grin. It feels as though it was always our destiny to be moving this fast - desiring things to be built better and faster to generate revenue at a quicker rate - but it’s certainly easier to say that in hindsight.

Automation is considered a cornerstone of technological progress and is well-reflected in the types of consumer products we’re made to marvel over. Microwaves allow us to cook our prepackaged food with pre-cut vegetables and pre-cooked meats in the blink of an eye. Coffee machines spew a perfectly extracted espresso shot with the tap of a button. Similar inventions in mid-century America - washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and iceboxes - famously allowed women to complete their meal preparation and housework quickly. And while such creations freed up some time for homemakers, the standards for sanitation were heightened at an ever-quickening pace. Now that you can clean your dishes quicker, use your extra time to ensure they sparkle. Making things faster had its liberating nature - I’m glad I don’t have to scrub clothes on a washboard - but wasn’t necessarily as emancipatory as one might think.

1951 Tide Dishwashing Soap Ad. Photo from adclassix.com

Apart from consumer products, the entertainment sphere is a realm becoming hyper-automated, making it progressively easier to engross oneself in media and little else. I’m young enough to not remember a time before DVR recording technology and on-demand television content. And I’m also old enough to remember the novelty of a weekly family drive to Blockbuster to pick out a handful of DVDs for the weekend or the occasional sleepover Redbox rental. I remember Tuesdays being Pretty Little Liars nights and Thursdays being Glee nights, as that’s when new episodes were released. Being entertained was a far slower burn - the candle wax dripping leisurely as network television show seasons spanned months, with episode numbers spanning far into the double digits.

Today, entire seasons of television are released on streaming platforms at once, most of which contain eight to ten episodes per season to account for the population’s ever-shrinking attention spans and ever-expanding appetites. The rise of the “limited series” spawns from a similar source, keeping storylines tight and singular - a chewy morsel that’s robust enough to enjoy on its own, if canceled but ambiguous enough to expand into several more seasons, if successful. This cultural preference for bite-sized material is reified on platforms like TikTok, in which short-form videos allow for quicker hits of satisfaction - we’re able to experience a story, a day in someone’s life in just sixty seconds, what relief!

Sweet gratification from waiting and toiling is lost in an increasingly automated society. There are certain activities - like catching up with a friend on the phone - that are certainly better performed under automatic circumstances. Technological interventions are often welcome for work that’s long been grueling and back-breaking. However, we’re currently witnessing the consequences of good things being made more easily available. We grow progressively impatient as we refresh our food delivery app, agitated as a DoorDash driver waits to be assigned, even though we’ve already exempted ourselves from the cumbersome task of making a meal. Why spend the extra time and money to see a film in the theaters when it’s going to be piped to a streaming service on your connected television in just a few short months? Why risk humiliation by telling an estranged friend that they’ve crossed your mind when you can just like their Instagram story? 

What happens when we have all of the rewards - all of the payouts - but none of the work? We grow restless and itchy. We feel dissatisfied with our day-to-day routines, living for the weekends when the discontentment can be stifled by a vice or distraction. We crave expediency because our world craves expediency, never minding the repercussions because “faster” must obviously mean “better.” When we are encouraged to be mindful and slow - by our employers, by the internet -  it’s often a means to meet that more expedient end. The lesson is always to weave more mindfulness in our day-to-day life, but not to adopt a more mindful lifestyle because doing so would be incompatible with how we’re encouraged to live and work in every corner of our personal, professional, and social lives. But shifting to that way of living is what might curtail our ever-looming boredom and the fervent desire to be entertained at all expenses. 

Nowadays, when I shop for food to prepare in my kitchen, I sometimes find myself reaching for the whole items. An intact butternut squash rather than the one that’s cubed and plastic-wrapped. A round, magenta pomegranate rather than its seeds in a plastic cup. Prejudgements about freshness aside, there’s a little voice that urges me to scrape the squash’s innards out with a spoon and wash the seeds free from the pomegranate flesh with my hands. Swiping away the sweat with the side of my wrist, I smirk graciously, glad my hands are kept busy lest they gravitate to my face or my phone. A tiny atonement for a lifetime of itching and gaping, but a step in the right direction, I suppose. If we were all to truly slow down - truly resist automation - our worlds might literally collapse.

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