Thoughts About Immediacy

Immediacy in the present time is more about not postponing gratification and less about control. The amount of ever-present information makes it almost impossible to be attentive to what truly matters. Instead, we spend our time consuming whatever reaches us, always trusting the source.

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. — Herbert A. Simon

People feel addicted to consuming information because they fear what they don’t yet know. They want to always be in the know. They don’t want to look ignorant.

Unseen sunset. The unknown is probably the most powerful force there is to convince people into doing things. Not knowing something generates anxiety and you naturally want to fight it. It’s human nature to eliminate as much uncertainty as possible.

Being able to always know more—independently of how useful the information is—is a powerful pleasure device. We prefer to feel the immediate pleasure of knowing that we know than to feel we’re missing some important piece of news we don’t know about yet.

Why do we humans crave immediacy? I believe humans crave immediacy because it provides instant gratification and a sense of being part of the experience. The desire for instant gratification is often associated with difficulty coping with uncertainty, coming from a lack of future perspectives. — in The Illusion of Immediacy, Bruno Pedro, October 2020.