Yes, I agree with James Gleick and the whole “Faster!” idea – as the velocity of information transmission and consumption increases, we’re left struggling to focus on throughput and output rather than really savoring the experience. Bad.

Can I solve this for you? Probably not. But maybe I can create a map through the infomorass (oh “infomorass” – i like that. Just went and registered the url so you’re too late. See, Faster!).

The helpful device I intend to supply is a ratio of elapsed time to running time as a percentage. How long it took me to consume vs. the total time it could take. For example, let’s use the movie The Day After Tomorrow as an example, which I “watched” the other night.

Running Time: 124 minutes
Elapsed Time: 22 minutes (largely because I watched the L.A. decimated by tornados scene twice)
Ratio: 17.7%

What does 17.7% mean? The movie was so bad I fast-forwarded through most of it. Get it? So 100% means I watched it in real-time. 125% might suggest that it was so frickin’ good that I watched part of it twice.

We’ll need a snazzier name for this ratio but I assume that’ll come with time.