Time Urgency

Time is a finite resource; time can exchange for money; time is a commodity of value. These are the three most important metaphors for time in people’s experience of modernity.As an important and finite resource, time can be used to conduct various activities with the help of modern and advanced technology. This explains "Choice cost" of time. Also, time can be used to exchange for money or other values and experiences. This is called "Direct cost" of time."Choice cost" and "Direct cost" constitute time’s "Opportunity cost." Therefore, the higher value time has, the less likely people are to waste their time. Consequently, they will feel higher pressure and anxiety.In this study, experiments, show that, when value of time is lower than what people expect, it has negative effect on people’s time urgency due to the influence of "Opportunity cost of time." Namely, the higher value time has, the less urgency people will feel. On the contrary, when time value exceeds what people expect, value of time will be positively associated with the experience of time urgency. Therefore, it’s safe to conclude that time value and individual’s subjective expectation for time value work together to influence people’s sense of time urgency. Additionally, this study conducts investigation on time urgency of different social groups and confirms the above conclusion at the macro level of the groups.At the macro level, value of social time and people’s subjective expectation are changing in the context of modernity. These changes are closely related to the exchange between time and money as well as the commodification of time. In modern society, with the innovation and spread of technology, there is dramatic rise in time’s value, such as economic value, information value, emotional value, symbolic value and so on. Meanwhile, as "quantity" is gradually invading "quality" in the process of instrumental rationalization, people’s expectations accordingly increase. They expect to have more time, or thoroughly explore and make full use of time, in order to exchange for more value. All the above make up people’s "modern experience" of social time. Such experiences not only raise time’s value, but also considerably increase people’s expectation, and consequently result in the common time urgency in modern society.The process of modernization in China is accompanied by the occurrence and changes of time urgency. By comparing the levels and features of time urgency in different history periods of China, this study discovers that in addition to the factor of "modern experience" of social time, the speed of social changes and the amount of nation’s legitimate resources also exert important effects on people’s time urgency. Only when society changes in a fast speed will time urgency possibly occurs. Among these fast social changes, if the legitimate resources of nation is rich, people’s time urgency will work positively. Oppositely, if there is lack of legitimate resources, time urgency will play a negative role.China society is changing with unprecedented scale, scope, range as well as speed. With the instrumental rationalism about exchange between "quality" and "quantity" as well as the social fluctuation resulting from the nation’s continuous reinforcement on accumulating legitimacy resources of performance, people expect to possess more wealth and to be classified as elite class so as to avoid being eliminated in the dramatic social changes.To make full use of time, to gather more wealth more quickly and to become elite class earlier have become the direct reason of time urgency in present China society. In the context of China’s dramatic social change, time urgency not only is people’s "modern experience" of social time, but also develops into a social experience with Chinese characteristic.