Catching up with Natalie By Natalie Bridges

How I look in the morning – my hair stiff and skew-whiff and bleary eyed – is not how I look all day, but it can often be how I feel. That's because, like most people these days, cramming as much as you possibly can into every waking moment is the norm, as well as the unspoken expectation.

Most of us leap out of bed each morning and onto the treadmill of life. We sort of pole-volt off at the last possible moment to finally flump into bed at night. The sleep that follows can often be minimal before the next day arrives, when you put your armour of make-up and clothes to start all over again.

My sister said to me this week: modern life isn't for humans, it's for robots. The comment came after a litany of complaints that I can't seem to get on top of my lists that evolve out of my emails and diary and onto backs of envelopes, post-it notes that I stick in my phone cover and anything else I can get my hands on to write the thoughts that jump around in my mind throughout the day (and sometimes night). There are 'too many tabs open in my mind' as the popular saying goes.

The rate at which we're faced with emails, texts, Facebook feeds, news stories and various electronic streams of information is humanly challenging to handle. Life is increasingly lived in snappy soundbites. Less and less are we granted the privilege of time to analyse, think and wander around in our minds for answers and solutions to the tasks at hand. Thinking fast, on your feet and usually via electronic devices is the way we lead our lives. While we can talk about leaving our phones at home and detaching from emails in the weekend, it's getting increasingly difficult and seen as unacceptable. Being on call all hours of every day is a critical part of proving your worth.

As a result time-saving measures such as My Food Bag have evolved to cut out the thinking related to food shopping and cooking. The simple pleasures are being pushed out because 24 hours simply doesn't provide the time we humanly need to make everything possible.

Even moves like those of company LinkedIn this week – the latest in the States to offer staff unlimited holidays – to me is a cynical move in a world where our strength and stamina is so often measured by how fast, efficient, hardworking and eternally connected we are.

Some of us, myself included, are so ‘robitisised' (no, it's not a real word, but it may become one) that we daren't be parted from our phones or take holidays, and when we do, it's felt and seen as a guilty pleasure.

Wrenching oneself away from emails and work takes effort, then justifying it to your customers, boss and workmates when you do can prove uncomfortable and tricky, particularly in the case of all holidays being voluntary (rather than enforced). The chances of anyone taking advantage of such a policy must almost be nil and companies like LinkedIn with know that in advance.

Research released this week also shows that we're becoming increasingly obsessed with our 'selfie' images (as if we needed official research to prove that). The addiction to taking photos of ourselves in this research is connected to increasing numbers of people seeking cosmetic interventions and surgery to improve their selfie appearance.

Even the human form isn't safe from the 'robotisisation' of the world. We're all going to end up looking the same too, with faces that don't move and that conform to an image of beauty determined by the computer robots that already dominate our lives.