Instant Gratification

Cheap credit and immediate online access to infinite availability have contributed to one of the defining characteristics of our time - the 'have it all' culture of being able to instantly gratify our wants and needs. But at what cost?

Dominic Arkwright explores the pleasures and pitfalls of instant gratification in the company of three speakers from very different walks of life. Representing the complete antithesis of the quick hit, tapestry weaver Jane Freear-Wyld shows Dominic a textile the size of a paperback, explaining how it takes 250 hours, or six working weeks, to make. Hers is a world away from the work of advertising creative director Matt Beaumont who arguably fuels our lust for not only jam today, but yesterday and tomorrow too. Meanwhile, Times columnist and writer Sathnam Sanghera, recently returned from a holiday in Mumbai, argues that it's the recent shift towards instant gratification that is fuelling India's rapidly rising standard of living, very different to an ethos that promises fulfilment neither now nor in in this life at all, but in the next one.

Producer: Mark Smalley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2011.