When I was a child, there was a TV advertisement that strongly attracted my attention: It was a microwave commercial. I can’t recall the brand, but vaguely remember what they said. It was something like this:

“Defrosting chicken, 4 minutes. Heating food: 2 minutes. Boiling water: 15 seconds”

Time durations are invented, I can’t remember them exactly.

“Wow! How fast!“, I told myself. In those times, latest ’80s, microwaves were not very known, at least in the Canaries, and were more considered luxury stuff. But it wasn’t that what I found hard to believe. I rememeber my mother putting the chicken to defrost on the kitchen sink in the early morning, to start cooking it at midday; if I were to boil water for an infusion it took me at least 3 or 4 minutes in our gas cooker. So, was the advertisement telling the true? How could it be so fast?

Unfortunately, that was a bad omen: Not only cooking would speed up (with the arrival of microwaves): Everything did. People want to do everything quicker. And among this hustle and bustle, one asks oneself why: to save more time? more time to do more things quicker? It’s supposed that, in the end, you’ll have more spare time, but I’ve seen many people having fun in a hurry during their spare time, not knowing very well why, putting the foot on the accelerator all the time…

We live in a microwave society, a more and more vibrating one, of which symptoms are now moving into the blogosphere. If something requires time, few people take the trouble to try it.

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Posted by Boriel as Internet, Blogosphere at 9.27 pm

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