Challenges of Teaching Moral and Ethical Values in an Age of Instant Gratification

The concept of Instant Gratification comes from Psychology and refers to the idea that human beings like to have what they want right now; they don't want to wait. Freud refers to it as the id: a primitive part of the personality that pursues only pleasure and instant gratification. Contrarily, Delayed Gratification is the ability to wait for a later, better reward. This quality is associated with the inculcation of moral values and positive outcomes such as psychological and physical health, social competence and academic success. With the information revolution and heralding of the digital world information is at the fingertips, one can do various things instantly, google has all the answers and we have come to live in a world which is hyper-connected and in ‘always on' mode.