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Where is the North American lifestyle and culture headed?

By Amy Xiong on Tue, Apr 03, 2012 @ 09:13 AM |

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Have you been too busy and exhausted to cook yourself a nice meal? I know I have been and am not alone. It’s crazy to see how the culture is changing and creating these ADHD individuals who are constantly feeling the need to multi-task, although inefficient compared to doing “one thing at a time.”

Parents are raising their kids to be actively involved in piano, soccer, swimming and various activities by the age of three. I would have to agree with George Carlin’s satirical question, “Do today’s kids even know what a stick is?” In the linked video (with explicit material) he outlines his ideas of how parents are actually ruining their children’s experience of being a child. Kids are overscheduled due to a combination of parents projecting their busy lifestyle onto their children and fearing that if they don’t start their kids with these activities early, they will be behind the rest of the children.

How does having an overbooked lifestyle affect you and your kids? Is it really worth working more than 40 hours a week? Studies have found that working more than 40 hours a week is incredibly unproductive and actually harmful. You typically don’t get more out of a 10 hour work day versus an eight hour work day. Of course a little bit of hard work won’t kill you. It’s not bad to work up to 60 to 70 hours a week as long as it is for only a brief period of time. Changing this mindset of putting more hours into something to be productive can be difficult psychologically. We often feel the busier we are the more important we are and spend more time “proving something to ourselves rather than getting stuff done.” (Jessica Stillman, INC)

Should we stop trying to fight our need to be busy and use technology to embrace this lifestyle? I know one of the chores I hate doing is grocery shopping.  Well, that and putting my laundry away. Apparently, South Koreans spend too much time working that the way they shop for groceries had to be changed to be more convenient. In Korea, you can use your phone to scan QR codes to create your grocery list while waiting for the subway. 

Is this in the direction we’re heading in North America? I personally don’t think we will go as far as creating virtual stores in subways. However, I do believe more people will start ordering their groceries online and having them delivered to their homes. More companies will also focus on apps and other tools to save their customer’s time. Take a look at this Great Clips commercial:

One thing, most if not all, people would like to save time on are our trips to the DMV. Where is an app for that?

Comment below to let me know which direction you think the American lifestyle and culture is headed along with technology’s impact.

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