Exposure to Fast Food Can Make Us Impatient

While the main idea behind the creation of fast food is to decrease the amount of time that food plays into peoples schedules, now the fast food industry has filled our nations bellies with unhealthy diets and impatient eating habits.
Researchers at the Rotman School of Management have discovered that the imposed fast food makes people impatient and unwilling to save money if the opportunity presents itself.
Chen-Bo Zhong, a co-writer on the research paper done on this matter says,

"Fast food represents a culture of time efficiency and instant gratification."

"The problem is that the goal of saving time gets activated upon exposure to fast food regardless of whether time is a relevant factor in the context. For example, walking faster is time efficient when one is trying to make a meeting, but it's a sign of impatience when one is going for a stroll in the park. We're finding that the mere exposure to fast food is promoting a general sense of haste and impatience regardless of the context."

Zhong and his colleague, Sanford DeVoe will include topics like this in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science.
        Experiments have been conducted to show this phenomenon like in one where researchers flashed a series of food-place logos on a screen to subjects. The images were only flashed onto the screen for a couple milliseconds, but it was enough for the people to subconsciously recognize the symbols. In this test they found that the unconscious exposure to the symbols increased the reading speeds of the participants in a subsequent task where speed was not necessarily important. Another similar study shows that people recalled that after eating at a fast food restaurant they had they urge to purchase more time conserving products outside of the food business. For example, products such as two-in-one shampoo and conditioner or when people choose a smaller immediate payment on something instead of drawing in out into a larger payment over a longer amount of time (making more frequent smaller payments).
DeVoe says this,

"Fast food is one of many technologies that allow us to save time, but the ironic thing is that by constantly reminding us of time efficiency, these technologies can lead us to feel much more impatience. A fast food culture that extols saving time doesn't just change the way we eat but it can also fundamentally alter the way they experience our time. For example, leisure activities that are supposed to be relaxing can come to be experienced through the color glasses of impatience."

       Researchers however cannot pinpoint the problem all on the fast food industry because so many other factors can play into the part. Fast food does seem to contribute to a constant nation-wide urgency, but it can be said that such a fast-paced society developed this because of the way the culture is, in the media and with the introduction to more and more fast paced jobs.


       Either way it is very clear that the life-style that fast food imposes is not a good one, ready to make the world impatient and unhealthy. Zhong said

"Given the role that financial impatience played in the current economic crisis we need to move beyond counting calories when we examine the consequences of fast food as it is also influencing our everyday psychology and behavior in a wider set of domains than has been previously thought."

And here is an extra-super-awesome bit of statistic to feast your eyes upon!:




2010
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