Too busy to blog?

Is it me or is our country speeding up? Perhaps it's just that most of my friends/peers are at a similar stage in their lives to me but most people I speak to are feeling busier than ever. It's as if someone's taken hold of the key in the back of Britain and wound it tighter...

Recent reports & research from the likes of Friends Provident and Consumer Analysis Group have sought to understand what's going on: 48% of folks say they are busier now than 5 years ago with less time to relax, with 43% feeling as busy at the weekend as they do during the week (1), usually because our gadgets keep us 'on duty' when we shouldn't be. 1 in 3 people tend to feel busier BECAUSE of their PDA's, mobile phones, laptops and Blackberries. Hmmm... I'm guilty of all of those... guess what I'm thinking...

And then there's this: a certain Professor Richard Wiseman and his team have conducted a study that measured the speed of pedestrians in 32 city centres across the globe (2) They discovered that the pace of life has increased by 10% over the past decade. Singapore was the worst (pedestrians walked 60 feet in 10.55 secs), with Blantyre (Malawi) three times slower. London, you may be pleased to hear, is not in the top ten, but still not far off at 12.17 secs.

So what's going on? Are we making ourselves busier? Is it just that myself and most of my friends have kids AND jobs AND interests AND gadgets? Or is there something more sinister going on?

I for one have an idea that may at least assuage the inevitable stress a little bit more: I'm gonna have a gadget-free day (yes, me!) once a month. No emails, no texts, no Blackberry Instant Messaging, no blogging, no RSS-feeds, no message boards.

Can I do it? I hope so. I'll survive, that much is true. And I'll probably feel a lot better for it, too...