44 Hours a day, 7 Days a Week

Twenty years ago when I finished college and entered the job market everyone was a flutter about the new workplace gadgetry that would allow the average person to accomplish the equivalent of 50 analog hours of work in the standard 40 hour work week. Fax machines, desktop computers and pagers were going to make the world more efficient and businesses were going to soar into the technology age.

Today, studies show that people can now cram the equivalent of 44 analog hours into a good, old-fashioned 24-hour day - and it isn't just a workplace change - it's a lifestyle revolution. That's because people can easily handle three or four tasks simultaneously, letting them watch TV, listen to music, send text messages and game - all while updating Facebook. Welcome to the media acceleration era!

What has created the additional capacity for our days? It is not a growth in intellectual capacity or skills by the general population (actually that's probably dwindled). It hasn't resulted from new Congressional laws on daylight savings time, either. The increased capacity comes directly from the media tools and gadgets that no longer simply assist our daily routine; they control and drive our lifestyles.

Think back seven or eight years ago when all you did with your cell phone was make/receive calls. Today no two Blackberry's or iPhones are alike, each loaded with applications and tricked out with skins and ringers that not only identify but simplify the users' life. Not only do we have the tools to increase the capacity of our days, but the tools can now be tailored and personalized to accommodate our every whim and efficiently accomplish more in less time.

I am old enough to remember a time without mobile phones or cable TV. A time when cassette tapes and Beta tapes were the rage and when the new efficiency in the workplace was FedEx and fax machines - on thermal paper! Today I spend more time with my laptop than I do with other humans and dare I go more than 10 feet away from my Blackberry. Instead of waiting for the postman's mail drop, I get email from multiples accounts on the Blackberry, the iTouch, and the laptop - triple back up in case something would fall through the technology cracks.

I used to be able to recall telephone numbers of friends and family. Now my cell phone houses more than 900 professional, personal and other numbers of unknown origins. I have even started to apply business rules to my media tools - "address book entries must include both first and last name of the entrant" a nod to significance and resonance of the entry.

The cell phone and computer, once viewed as luxury items, now are basic necessities, often needing to be enhanced with Bluetooth, the GPS, iPod, digital camera, satellite radio and a few jump drives and smart disks just to be competitive in the world and interact with your community.

These tools are more than tools they have become the facilitator of our social interactions and relationships. Growing up, I remember that my parents "social network" was primarily family and the neighbors and they numbers a couple dozen folks, total. Today, our social community numbers hundreds on MySpace or Facebook. I am more likely to chat with friends across the country than to know the names of the people across the street. With video conferencing, tele-commuting, on line shopping, Skype, and Google there are many days when my entire world evolves without ever walking outside.

Forty-four hours a day in 2009 - twenty years ago that was a week's worth of work activity with overtime. What can 2029 hold for a new generation - 50 or 60 hours? We'll soon find out.....