Everything seems to happen rapidly in today’s world — and it is only speeding up. How can we deal with that constant change?
The pace that things are changing now is impressive. Just a hundred years ago, things were drastically different. Automotive flight was in its infancy. Radio and newspaper were the primary forms of communication — there was no TV, no Internet.
Even 50 years ago would seem like a time capsule to today’s youth. Color television was just a few years old. Computers were massive machines that took up entire rooms.
In addition to significant technological change, there have been large social changes as well. Examples include women’s liberation, the rise of social media, and legalization of gay marriage.
Of course, there were changes, often momentous ones, in decades and centuries past. However, the speed at which these revolutions in science, technology, and culture take place is getting faster and faster. For instance, the telephone took more than a century from invention to widespread use. Television took decades, and then the smartphone just a few years.
People, though, remain largely the same. Life expectancy has increased, yes, and we know more about our health and the way our bodies work. But our brains are the same ones that evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.
With that in mind, it is remarkable that humans have managed to adapt as well as we have over the last century or two. However, there are signs that even our flexible brains are having difficulty taking in our information-heavy, rapidly-evolving existence.
How do you deal with the speed of today’s society? Does the 24-hour news cycle impact you negatively? Do you chase the latest smartphone model, and if so, what happens when you get it? How often do you feel overwhelmed?
Related questions: What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Are we too busy? How do you deal with major life changes? What technology most impacts your life?