On Demand

For most people those two words "on demand" will immediately make them think of TV shows, Movies, and streaming services that allow you to have immediate access to that content as and when you want to consume it.  This concept however goes far beyond entertainment, at least in that sense of the word; it extends into almost every part of our lives now.  There has been a lot of criticism over the years, that attacks and deconstructs the psychological impulse for immediate gratification and attempts to explain why we have developed this mentality - I've even written posts about the issue before from the same angle of breaking down the operant conditioning that existed where behaviour was rewarded with something desirable when a person exhibited desirable behaviour, but all of these approaches only address the issue of seeking the reward without having to exhibit the behaviour first, none of them attempt to address the behaviour in and of itself and why it was abandoned.

To give an example, using traditional entertainment, time was you would watch an episode of your favourite show and then have to wait a week before you could watch the next episode.  This still exists today but is becoming increasingly uncommon.  Services like Netflix are moving towards an all-at-once release schedule where an entire season is released in one go and you can watch it all back to back if you want, it's up to you to decide whether to ration it or not.  The usual criticism of this model is that it encourages binge culture, where you are given the reward without having to exhibit the behaviour beforehand - in other words you get the pay-off without the work.  What I would argue though is that this misses the real issue, that is the question of why the behaviour that was required in the first place is not desirable.

You might find yourself replying that the answer is obvious, nobody wants to wait if they have a choice to get it now they'll take it, but again that glosses over the real issue, that only explains the behaviour it doesn't explain the reasoning or the rationale.  It doesn't tell you why people don't want to wait, and I'm not convinced the answer is simply because of greed or the desire to consume it now.  My theory as to why this model is so desirable is actually because time has become a commodity, and people are entirely conscious of that fact.  The reason people don't want to wait isn't because of greed then, it is because the time they would spend waiting is time that is wasted, time that could be spent doing something else instead.  You might find yourself asking then why people who are waiting for something can't simply focus on other things until the time comes, and my only response to that question is that dividing your consciousness is actually quite difficult for most people.  We like to think that we can all multi-task and do seven different things at once without efficiency or proficiency being affected but the reality is we can't.

When it comes to multi-tasking, I believe humans aren't actually capable of doing it.  I would argue that a concept from computing - quite an archaic concept at this point - know as Round Robin Scheduling (RRS) is what is employed when you ask someone to do more than one thing at a time.  For those that don't have a background in computing, RRS dates back many decades, I can't find the exact date but it is at least 30 years old now as a concept.  RRS is a very primitive method used to achieve multi-tasking, it basically takes the processing time available and divides it into slices, then allocates one or more slices to each of the tasks that need to be completed, the intended result is that all tasks receive a share of processing time.  There are more efficient ways to achieve multitasking with modern hardware using threading and multiple core processors, but back when we had computers that couldn't do more than one thing at a time because of physical limitations, this is how the illusion of multi-tasking was achieved.  There was never a point where more than one thing was actually being processed when you look at the use of the algorithm, when each slice executed, only one task was being worked on.

In terms of the human mind and our thought processes, I believe this is also happening, whether we are aware of it or not.  It's easy to argue the counter point but when you apply the same scrutiny to the discrete processing that any human carries out when performing multiple tasks you begin to see a number of things are apparent.  Firstly, as I have mentioned in a previous post, our awareness is limited, we see only what we are looking for, and ignore everything else.  This abstraction is common in our lives and the way we perceive the world.  Give a person something that they have to think about for some time in advance and thoughts of that thing will begin to affect their productivity.  If someone dreads the dentist for example, and they are given an appointment in 2 weeks time, then for the next two weeks in everything they do, the thought of the impending "doom" of that appointment will occupy the back of their mind.  Returning to the concept of Round Robin Scheduling, what I believe happens in these moments is that a slice of your processing time is being assigned to that thought process, to the point where everything you do is impacted.  The more things like this you have to worry about, the more slices of your time are consumed by those thoughts, until eventually the free time that remains to be allocated to other tasks becomes so small it becomes impossible to do anything productive.

Stop for a moment and think about your own life, how often have you found yourself in this situation, where despite your best efforts you just can't push something completely out of your mind, where you find it hard to focus on anything or give it 100% of your attention because of the other things you have to think about?  More than this, how many times have you found yourself in a position where your idle time is constantly consumed by one or more thought processes that you just can't escape, where you can spend 10 hours doing anything at all, and in every moment you have a break, every time you stop, every time you pause, your mind instantly returns to that one thing you just can't escape.

I believe we are not capable of true multi-tasking, we are limited in our mental faculties and we have employed the same processing trickery on a physiological level as we did when we designed those primitive computers we once used.  I believe it is for this reason above all else that we desire immediate gratification, not because of greed, or our inability to wait and be patient, but for the sad inescapable reality that we just want to get it over and done with - no matter how positive or enjoyable or pleasurable we may perceive that experience to be that we desire, the want to have it now is actually borne of the desire to get through it as quickly as we can, then return to whatever we spend the rest of our time thinking about.