Mongoose, 8/27

One of the ideas that stuck out to me on the topic of postmodernism was how arbitrary an idea it really is. Many different time periods have been considered to be “postmodern”, but when exactly does the “modern” era begin and end? The reason that I interpreted as to why society is always changing and thus moving deeper and deeper into a postmodern era is the cultural obsession with speed. We are always looking for ways to speed things up; we find out news and other information as soon as it happens, have to get wherever we are going as fast as possible, sacrifice quality of food in order to get it quicker, and send text messages, rather than picking up the phone and calling someone, in order to deliver a quick message. Everywhere one chooses to look in our society “speed” is all around us. One of the main aspects of speed that stuck out to me was the way that it continues to “modernize” our culture in the aspect of communication. Nowadays it is possible to perform every aspect of business on a cell phone that used to require a desktop computer; this makes it possible to accomplish things a much higher rate because you can answer emails or balance bank accounts on the go while running errands necessary to run your business. The obsession with speed has also lead to technological advances making it possible to keep up with people and let your friends know what you are doing all at one time with the click of a button. These things are made possible through the developments of social networking pages such as Facebook and Twitter. Many people chose such networks as their outlet to news information, weather, sports as well as conversations with friends, again stressing the aspect of speed by getting all of this information from one easy to access page. Although these things have seemingly come about at an alarming rate, they will undoubtedly be outdated in our near future because of our unsatisfied desire for speed and advancement.