Old Father Times Becomes a Terror

¶ … Famine' Phenomenon: Effect of Technology and Information Explosion in the Post-Modern Human Society Richard Tomkins' Old Father Time Becomes a Terror is an article that discusses and analyzes the modern perspective regarding time management, as applied in the contemporary American society. The author provides a historical and comparative analysis of the value and availability of time in the American society, where there occurs a changing trend in time and task managements of the socially mobile American.

This changing trend is an inverse relationship between time available and tasks done, wherein decreasing time availability results to the almost geometrical increase in the workload and tasks that needs to be accomplished by the average working American. More importantly, Tomkins introduces the 'time famine' phenomenon that results from the inverse and incompatible relationship between time and task management.

In the article, Tomkins illustrate how recent developments in technology and society's increasing need for information results to the phenomenon of 'time famine,' or the lack of time available to accomplish vital tasks, such as workload from one's job and spending time with the family and accomplishing household chores. The first factor, technological development, has changed the social landscape of American society in the age of Information Technology. Technological development is described and manifested by new line of gadgets and products that purportedly make everyday living easier than before.

Tomkins, however, offers a contrasting opinion about this seeming positive advantage of technological advancement. According to him, "[t]echnology, we thought, would make our lives easier.. But instead of liberating us, technology has enslaved us. Innovations are occurring at a bewildering rate.. And as each invention arrives, it eats further into our time" (528). Indeed, the proliferation of new technologies created within the mindset of the average American that a task cannot be done easily without this new technology.

Without these new gadgets and innovations, people seem to be 'incapacitated,' and unable to finish tasks, even though it may have been accomplished at a faster pace without the help of a particular technology. Thus, with so many gadgets to operate at such short time or period, people develop a perception that there is no time available for them at all, resulting to the 'time famine' phenomenon to be reinforced.

Another cause of the phenomenon is the character of today's society, which considers information (and knowledge, in effect) as essential to develop and increase competitiveness within the individual. 'Information explosion' is the term used to describe the sudden influx of information, whether they are important to the individual or not, that comes with the advent of new technologies that allows information to be created and delivered at real time, particularly.