Fast food culture making people impatient

A new study has shown that eating fast food makes people impatient even when they are not short of time.

The research team from Canada showed that daily exposure to fast food could have a subliminal effect on behaviour, making people hurry regardless of whether they are pushed for time.

People who are exposed to fast food logos become increasingly impatient and lose the impulse to save money.

“Fast food represents a culture of time efficiency and instant gratification. The problem is that the goal of saving time gets activated upon exposure to fast food regardless of whether time is a relevant factor in the context,” telegraph.co.uk quoted lead researcher Chen-Bo Zhong, assistant professor of organisational behaviour at Toronto University as saying.

“When I sit in a fast-food restaurant, I find myself gobbling my Big Mac down at this incredible speed, even though there is no rush at all,” Zhong added.

Student volunteers were quickly shown six logos from fast-food chains – McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Wendy’s and Taco Bell. The speed at which they read a 320-word passage was measured before and after they were shown the logos, and was found to be significantly faster afterwards.

The study will be published in the Psychological Science journal.