A Quick Read on the Quickening Pace of Life

Faster: The Acceleration of Just AboutEverythingby James GleickVintage330 pp., $14

How often do you catch yourself trying to shave seconds off your daily routine? Perhaps you jab the "door close" button in elevators or take the straightest route across the grass instead of following the tortuous sidewalk. At this moment, you may be saving time by reading (or skimming) this review while eating with one hand, finishing an assignment with the other and simultaneously listening to music or television in the background. As James Gleick, author of the National Book Award nominated Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, attempts to show in Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, you are not alone. Through his discussion of time as related to changes in all aspects of life--from daily activity, to the entertainment industry, to politics--he endeavors to prove that we humans are like Alice in Wonderland's habitually late white rabbit, a race of "door close" button pushers and multitaskers who cannot win the race against the clock. What are some of today's time savers? Answering machines and computers used by 411 operators edit messages to speed the conveyance of information; elevators are being made to move faster; appliances such as microwaves shave minutes off the daily routine. But as soon as Gleick provides these examples of efficient technology, he dismisses their time-saving abilities. Gleick's writing style is direct and easily read. Also, he is often witty with his pop culture references and his sometimes-cynical views of the human condition. The latter is evident in his realization that new inventions have only removed mere seconds and minutes of daily activity and at the same time have provided us with new means of wasting time with innovations like the Internet and customer service hotlines.

Gleick dissects the average person's day: seven hours and 18 minutes asleep, one hour and 13 minutes of driving, four minutes of government paperwork, four and a half hours of housework, 45 minutes of physical activity, 52 minutes on the phone, 31 minutes of childcare, 16 minutes looking for lost objects, four minutes on sex, etc. Many of these averages are much lower than they have been in the past. But when added up, the number of minutes spent on daily activities far exceeds the total number of minutes in a day. Not only is every second filled with activity, but each is occupied with the accomplishment of several actions simultaneously. Economist Juliet Schor claimed in her 1991 book The Overworked American that people have an extra month of work. Gleick makes the valid argument that this month of new work comes from our filling our newly acquired free time with more work. People have become victims of some "mania," using their saved seconds and minutes to attempt a great deal more activity, contributing to the popular idea that busyness is equivalent to vitality.

There may not be enough minutes in the day, but Gleick asserts that as a society we are not fazed as long as we and the world around us work at higher velocities. Caffeinated beverages have become increasingly popular as daily doses of induced speed. News clips and politician statements are shortened to mere seconds. Spectator sports, such as baseball, implement rules for the purpose of cutting the length of game play. Commercials flash past too quickly to be anything more than subliminal messages. Speed is discovered in new areas and pursued, everyone having the goal of living in the moment, or in "real time."

Gleick's novel spills over with interesting information, which testifies to the great amount of research he has done. He has gathered information from such eclectic sources as movie sets, telephone headquarters, airline control centers, the Directorate of Time, government agencies and research groups, in order to give his claims a firm foundation in fact. And although it might not be quick enough for the busy individual who is its subject, Faster is a fast read. Gleick creates a page-turner through his use of suspense. His chapters come full circle. Gleick is very good at carrying the reader through his profound arguments about time and its affect on us. His style successfully makes his abstract claims obvious and accessible in the small number of pages of each chapter. At times, however, Gleick sidetracks onto tangents, as in the chapter "The Law of Small Numbers" with its many symbols and mathematical discussions, is only weakly related to his argument. His thoughts get so muddled with heavy ideas of the science of time that he sometimes loses sight of the more interesting societal affects of speed on the individual. He also loses his reader. However, these passages are fast and few, and do not completely lack relevant material.

Faster reveals that despite all our haste we may only be running in place. Gleick wisely avoids the "Smell the roses" cliches and imparts no advice on how to save one's time in our increasingly hurried lives. In fact, he dedicates a whole chapter to exposing the contradictions present within self-help books, like 365 Ways to Save Time. Gleick asks only that we acknowledge this condition. He states that the speed at which we accomplish our multitudinous tasks has its consequences. Not only may the quality of our work suffer, but also the quality of our lives. For example, leisure is no longer existent, having been replaced by the oxymoronic "leisure activity." We are also made aware of the effect speed has on times past and present. Those times that were once viewed as speedy are today viewed as slow. We move as if there has always been a slower and will always be a Faster. Gleick, however, portends that our racing population will eventually crash into the limits of speed. In some ways, he shows we have already done this; we have learned that one can't hurry decomposition, nor a souffle, nor love. Gleick quotes the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass explaining to Alice that, in her world, "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. Faster reveals that we are doing exactly that.

Admittedly, Faster contains loopholes of weak argument and some sweeping generalizations based on the averages calculated in the official records from which Gleick acquired much of his information. However, in general the book provides an insightful, analytical representation of today's time-ruled society. You will no doubt see yourself in the national averages and examples Gleick uses. Be warned before you read this intriguing book; the time you invest in it exceeds the mere hours it takes to read. You will recall it every time you find yourself doing three things at once or choosing whether or not to push that "door close" button.