Items related to Busy Bodies
A look the time-efficiency obsession shows how Americans constantly trade off inconvenient activities for those that take less time and require the use of new technology, and uses humorous anecdotes to show how "busybodyness" affects every aspect of life.
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From Kirkus Reviews:
An anecdotal, wry, clever--and deeply disturbing--critique of the way Americans use and abuse time. Burns (Architecture and Urban Planning/UCLA) ranges from the trivial and personal uses of time to the cosmic. Instead of leisure, Burns says, affluence has created a population too busy getting and spending, looking after number one, to cultivate the spirit and the mind--or even the social bonds that nurture them. Activities are chosen on the basis of the greatest reward for the least investment, and for instant gratification. Fast foods, wash-and-wear clothes, phones, and computers speed up life while such substitutes as cats for dogs, powerboats for sailboats, liposuction for dieting, and sex for courtship--and such ``synchronic'' phenomena as learning (from audiotapes, etc.) while driving--allow people to cram more activities into available time. These priorities, Burns contends, focus on self-serving, isolating forms of behavior that alter politics (leaving no time to vote, participate, volunteer), education, domestic life (leading to neglected children), and the nature of work itself: Assisted by technology, homebound workers are insulated from human interaction. As courtesies and public ceremonies decline, so do community, public concern, and social consciousness. And here Burns's message becomes ominous: Dependence on technology, speed, and efficiency, he says, increases the possibility for human error, producing such disasters as Chernobyl and Challenger, collisions between the powers of Mother Nature and Father Time. Burns shows, moreover, that similar values of time-efficiency govern medicine and terrorism--with the same fatal results. Burns develops his argument from a diverting meditation on the meaning of ``busybody'' to a cheerless indictment of those powerful and affluent Americans who make time more important than life itself. Essential reading. (Drawings--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Publishers Weekly:
Porn videos, sound bites, declining volunteerism, Three Mile Island and mis-read Pap tests are a few of the myriad examples Burns cites in this witty look at how a perceived shortage of time is mishaping American society. We are driven by a rule to get the most pleasure in the least time, suggests Burns, who teaches in UCLA's Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Planning. Tracking this principle as it operates in politics, manners, medicine, fitness, relationships and home life, he occasionally probes views of other societies, especially Japan. Also of interest is a history of time-telling and time-saving. Although reductive and repetitive, with too many explanations calling on quasi-algebraic equations, Burns's survey offers much to enjoy--for those who have the time. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherBlackstone Pub
- Publication date1995
- ISBN 10 078610774X
- ISBN 13 9780786107742
- BindingAudio Cassette
(No Available Copies)
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