Book Review: Paul Roberts,The Impulse Society: What’s Wrong with Getting What We Want

The Impulse Society is a highly researched book by Paul Roberts portraying unsustainable behavioural change in the current development of society. Theme of this book is on devilish short sightedness prevalent in society which has now engrossed not just in human nature but also in organizations and governments across the globe. The book is divided into three parts having nine chapters in totality. First part talks about growing nature of instant gratification among individuals and society. The second part underpins horrible consequences that are happening due to selfish organizations and human beings. Third part is the concluding part, which talks about various solutions that can be implemented to change the myopic viewpoint of humans which can bring sustainable growth for each stakeholder in society.

Roberts starts the book with emphasizing on side effects of extreme digital addiction which require immediate cure. An organization called reSTART in USA helps people to overcome insurmountable problem of extreme digital consumption (p. 1). It is a first of its kind in USA which has understood the nuances caused by digital technologies. Human brain is now controlled by impulsiveness for instant gratification. With the parade of astonishing demands of personal goals and goods, our mind is now more attuned in acquiring things in the shorter span of time. The ability to wait patiently for larger gratification is now eclipsed with short-term and small gratification needs. People now dream of highest amount of momentary pleasure for the least efforts.

Need of having next car or next holiday trip has surpassed the requirements of getting better education or contributing to development of society. On similar lines, investors are chasing for short-term quarterly results rather than long-term ability of a company to grow. Organizations are more focused on getting productivity and profit from business rather than sustainable development of equitable society. Governments of developing countries are more behind foreign institutional investors rather than focusing on development of rail, roads, bridges and educational infrastructure. We should develop societal relationships whose survival will not haunt us in bed.

With the rise of easy credit money, people have begun spending more money than their income. According to a study conducted by Soman (2001), people who pay household bills with credit cards are more likely to splurge money on vacations compared to people paying bills through check. Not just that, but people paying with credit cards do not even remember exact paid amount after 10 minutes of interval (p. 63). Human brain has fallen into trap of spending plastic money which has not even been earned. This spending culture without equivalent earning is wired for disaster. Materialism is so widespread in society that the brain designed to work with scarcity must now cope with superabundance. Available digital information and entertainment is almost free and practically endless that we must rely on our capability to put a self-limit.

Desire for quick money is so omnipresent that even banks were fooled by subprime shadows on the wall (Goetzmann, Peng, & Yen, 2012). Impulsiveness caused by ballooned societal enhancement in developed countries can be dangerous. This alarming fact must be kept in mind while making impulsive decisions, because no one wants to be the guy who does not have a chair when the music stops. Earlier, if you had to buy a product then you need to move to the market but now giants like Alibaba, Amazon serve across the world. You can order a product and it will lend at your doorstep. But this desire to get pampered is rising day by day. People are not even able to wait for two days for delivery of product. Amazon launched same day delivery options in many of the cities and buyers are ready to shed extra amount for such value-added services. Amazon is now working on delivery through drones which will help company to manoeuver its products even faster (p. 130). This will further act as a catalyst in increasing impulsiveness of society.

Organizations in developing countries are more inclined towards getting job done in cheapest possible way, hardly bothering about its societal consequences. American and British law firms are offshoring their low-value work to Sri Lanka and Philippines leaving behind a skewed ratio between number of graduating students and job openings in their countries (pp. 122–3). American society has become so selfish that each year they spend 11 billion a year for cosmetic surgeries but leaving behind 50 million people without basic health insurance (pp. 174–5).

The battle to defeat this impulsiveness has already begun. Some families in USA have started following detox hours not just to stay away from digital flooding but to give more time to family intimacy (p. 227). Governments across the globe can curb this impulsive behaviour among society by levying transaction tax on economic activities seeking short-term profit gain. It should be made compulsory for all organizations to train their human resources. Organizations must be encouraged to invest bigger chunk of profits on research and development rather than spending it on buyback of shares. This buyback programme of company’s own shares is usually promoted by chief executive officer (CEO) in order to increase their own pie. It is pertinent that CEOs must be given restricted stock option plan which they could not sale for at least 5 years from the time of becoming CEO. In all, performance-based incentives should be encouraged and rent-seeking behaviour should be prohibited. It is time to realize that individual freedom and power can produce exponential results if the intent is to benefit entire society.