One of the biggest tragedies encountered in day to day life is when shopping online and coming across the message, “not eligible for prime 3-day shipping”.  Many people will buy a different product altogether over that simple fact and it begs the question, why are we so impatient?  Amazon Prime’s 3-day shipping is just one example of the new generations craving and need for instant gratification in their everyday lives.  Companies are constantly innovating and struggle to keep up with the increase demand in the, “I want it and I want it now” attitude among millennials.  On black Friday for the first time ever this year free overnight shipping was made available which shows just how far companies are willing to go to stay ahead in the instant gratification era.  This trend influences other aspect of life as well, people are looking for short cuts to long term happiness through dating apps, 30-day weight loss programs, and companies, “get-rich-fast methods”.  While the push for instant gratification has created huge improvements in businesses and their efficiency, we have suffered from a socioeconomic standpoint.  The increasing need for instant gratification has created a generation of millennials who lack the skills necessary to create meaningful relationships in their everyday lives.  People look for confirmation about themselves through dating applications and posts on social media and hold more value for their phones than personal relationships.  This inability to create long term connections can be seen throughout millennials self-image, romantic relationships, and everyday interactions with the public.

One of the more recent industries emerging from the social media era is the online dating market.  It has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry and according to a study done by the NY Daily News over one third of marriages today start through online means (One).  One of the most popular online dating apps is tinder, with over 100 million downloads, 10 million daily users, 1.4 billion swipes a day, and 26 million matches per day, it is easily the most used dating app out there (Smith).  Although out of its 100 million users only 54% of them are single, so what is the draw of this app?  Well similar to the rush most people get when they pull a lever on a slot machine, every right swipe is a gamble on whether the initial attraction is reciprocated (Rosenburg). Tinder appeals to the most primitive nature of people’s physical draw to each other, much like the idea of “love at first sight”, even though most profiles on tinder are deceptive and the (male) user on average is 3 years older and 2 inches shorter than what their profile shows (Schulman). When two people match it instantly sends a copious amount of dopamine to the brain satisfying the instant gratification we so crave (Rosenburg).  While it is a very convenient method to find others with similar interests, most people who match rarely start a conversation with each other and even fewer ever meet in person.  Many (especially females) say they purely use apps like tinder to gain self-confidence and see how favorable they are to others.  Every time somebody gets a match receptors in the pleasure part of the brain react, this same effect can be observed when a person posts a picture online and gets a lot likes.  This reaction in the brain makes people crave likes on pictures and matches on dating sites almost as though they had an addiction to them (Roberts). In a study revolving around the neurological effects of posting online, people (especially females) could not help but constantly check their phone for new likes or comments on their pictures (Bauer).  This paired with online dating pushes people to seek self-worth and acceptance through means of likes and matches with others online. The online dating pool is a great way to find others with similar interests and life goals, but long-term relationships are harder for people to maintain since there’s always a seemingly “better candidate” in the huge selection of online singles.

One of the biggest impacts of instant gratification can be seen in how people go through their everyday lives and interact with the public.  A social part of life that has seemingly improved directly because of instant gratification is fundraising.  Crowdfunding sites like GoFundMe have made the idea of donating and helping others easier than ever and with the increasing use of social media people get the satisfaction of instantly seeing the effects of their donations (Daly).  One successful example of a crowdfunding campaign is the +Pool project set in New York.  It raised 273,114 dollars to help clean the water between New York and New Jersey in the city while providing a body of water for tourists to swim in (Daly). With a easier way to raise money comes a higher risk of scam artists (Fredman).  In 2015 the first ever crowdfunding fraud case was settled by the FTC where a project creator promised to develop a game called “The Doom of Atlantic City” raising over 122,000 from contributors.  The creator Erik Chevalier gave false information about the production of the product for 14 months and was found to have spent most of the money of things like his own rent (Fredman).  Overall crowdfunding campaigns have been a simple way to fundraise to help families and causes but with the ease of raising money fraud is becoming more prevalent.  One of the big reasons instant gratification has become so prevalent is because we live in a world ruled by specialization.  Online marketing thrives off this with the heavy use of cookies imbedded into websites (Stout) When shopping online a website can track the types of items a person looks at and which websites a person will most frequently use to create a personalized ad experience for each individual.  This explains why when looking up a certain item on amazon it will reappear on the side of the page while scrolling through Facebook (Stout).  This specialization comes up in other aspects of everyday life like a watchlist on Hulu, or Netflix, suggested music on Spotify or Pandora, and the “You may also like” pop-ups when shopping online (Wiggs).  Almost every time a person clicks on a website cookies are being used to create personalized databases across websites with individual numerical identifiers (Hill). With all of the work taken out of searching it creates a society that feels an obligation to a perfect life that molds around their every desire (Roberts). This obligation comes with many risks, including people’s privacy.  Companies and websites have the ability to track all searches a person does throughout the day and locate them even when they aren’t on the site itself (Roberts).  Another risk that comes with the perfect life created online is the ease of making purchases.  With companies readily giving out credit cards and extending limits too high for what people can afford, more and more people get into irreparable debt (Roberts).  It is so easy to get sucked into the promise of cash back rewards, and instant savings that come with the opening of a credit card but most younger millennials do not realize the consequence of overages and bad credit at such a young age.  The instant savings of 25% off the purchase right then is too alluring to pass no matter how damaging it could be to future loans one may need (Roberts).  The ease of spending on credit has cause each household carrying a credit card balance to owe an average of about 16,000 dollars and this number only continues to grow with the new age of consumers (Frankell).  

Instant gratification not only impacts people’s relationships with others, it impacts their relationship with themselves.  Today self-image is shaped widely by social media and the glamorous and unrealistic lifestyles found in places like the discover section on Instagram featuring the socialites of the online world.  Luckily the rise in self-image issues, paired with the anonymity of the internet has created easy to access forums and support groups online for people who are going through almost any type of problem.  With instant access to just about everything on the internet individuals going through tough times have the opportunity to seek help anonymously through various methods online (Daly). Today’s generation is more impulse driven than previous generations ever were, in a study that focused on behavioral economics participants were presented with the choice between $50 right away or $100 dollars at a later date.  Brain waves were examined along with these studies; the impulsive younger millennials who mostly chose the $50 had more activity in the ventral striatum which dictates how much you are enjoying a reward, and older generation X participants who chose the $100 dollars had a higher amount of activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that helps you think about the future (Bauer). Overall most people chose the $50 dollars which was explained by behaviorists with the simple fact that because the future is so fuzzy and indefinite, it is less appealing to envision a future reward when the instant reward can have instant implications (Bauer).  A real-life application is stopping for fast-food, it is quicker, easier, and cheaper than a homecooked meal or a dinner at a restaurant with healthier options but in the long run it can cause problems such as type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.  This is one reason obesity is so prevalent in our country today with the convenience and price of fast food being a better choice in the moment.  The rise in obesity along with the strong presence of glamorous unrealistic lifestyles online has created a huge increase in individual’s negative body image and a decrease in self- confidence (Williams).

Every day the world comes closer to becoming completely specialized to serve each person’s individual needs and wants.  Today it is possible to filter preferences on dating apps, have shows related to ones already watched suggested, have new music shown based off previous playlists, and show items catered to previous purchase preferences online.  Almost all the hard work is taken out of searching and almost anything a person could want can be bought with the click of a button online and hand delivered to their door for no cost in as little as 3 days.  It is easy to look at the innovations and how far we have come, but what most people do not consider the socioeconomic damage these innovations have.  Debt is at an all-time high and many students and households carry over credit card balances and take out loans that they may never be able to pay off.  Even though searching for the things we love is easier than ever there is a trade-off of specialized searches for our privacy.  Companies are able track almost everything people search online and even use geolocators to track what stores and locations they travel to every day.  A majority people now start intimate relationships on online platforms and the fun of getting to know each other in a new relationship is virtually non-existent with the ability to find out a person’s whole profile at the click of a button.  The age of instant gratification is the most innovative yet, but with innovation our generation has become desensitized to the real world.
