Current era - rapid innovation = burnout? (humans, people)

[WouldLoveTo]

Maybe this goes in the work forum, but I think it's more of a sociology thing. It's something I've seen come about with the rapid expansion of social media and I think it's doing more harm than good.

Of course, companies have always had to innovate to keep ahead of the competition. But to me, it seems like in the past 5 years the turnaround time has gone to next to nothing. You churn out an idea and it gets posted on social media, and immediately you need to churn out another bigger and better one, well before this one is even implemented. Often people demanding the continued updates/changes are not the people who even do the work.

I'd been in the computer industry in its infancy and while yes, R&D was always ongoing, there was never a rush to get new products out every single year. These days I see people complaining about an icon on their phone - i.e. "When are you going to update your icon, it's stale man!". The icon makes perfect sense with regard to the app in question and for a person like me who is very visual by nature, a changed icon can really throw me off. Does a company need a redesigned icon every year to be hip? I'd rather them fix a bug (my main complaint isn't even with the tech industry, the icon example was just something I remembered from reading reviews recently).

Seems like no one knows how to even relax and smell the roses anymore. I feel this in my own industry and it's a very simple low tech industry that doesn't even have a lot of competition. I have no problem with hard work, I just think the current direction the world is headed in with some things is just a little off the wall. It actually came to me from seeing a really cute comic strip from a sock manufacturer. It's going to spread around FB and be tweeted and I got to thinking - how big is this company really? Did the person who designed this do this for a living or is it just something they do in addition to the 5 other job duties they have? Now that it's been shared a number of times, are they going to be pressured to create a new one right away? What if they don't have that creative vein in them that can be called upon at will?

I think that today, people don't even have a moment to absorb what they already have before something new is being thrust at them. I used to love reading and learning about new things, and I find it very hard to do that with information overload. While this paragraph is slanted towards the side of the receiver, I do think it's a bigger issue for the creators of such content.

Hope this makes sense, I feel it's a little disjointed. But would love to discuss! (and it can be moved to Work if it's more appropriate there)

[metalmancpa]

I'll answer this in one simple way - supply and demand.

People b*tch, companies change, New cell phones come out every month because the last ones didn't have a button there, or a camera with enough pixels. Technology grows exponentially, and humans, technologies creator, seems to chase it as much as create it. Society is being re-crafted every day thanks to technology. Old schoolers will find many negatives - what happened to talking? New schoolers will say - we are connected to the world.

I see both viewpoints, but regardless, technology is driven by business and money and profit. The feeding frenzy is evident - so those who can take advantage and supply the users with whatever they can.

If someone could invent a weapon of mass technology destruction, and in one push shut down anything that works with a plug or a battery, a majority of people would implode.