How much has the pace of life sped up recently?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My computer was hiccuping this a.m., and I was sensing the frustration of having to wait seconds for something that usually occurs nearly instantaneously. I was wondering about measurements of how much more quickly things move today than even a decade or 2 ago. For example, do computers boot up more quickly? How much quicker is it to access the internet than through a dial-up modem. How much quicker is an average search?

Any other measures? Maybe same/next day delivery of goods ordered on-line?

Is there ANYTHING that generally takes longer today than in the past?

I recall reading a book on steam travel, which said that prior to the 1800s, the pace of life was little changed from biblical times - the fastest people/goods/or information could travel was a horse or sailing ship. In many respects, the overall pace of car/train/plane travel has not increased over my adulthood. But in many other respects, it seems as though the pace of life - at least regarding the flow of information - has increased dramatically.

2

Specifically on the system-boot-up thing, comparing modern laptops with old machines like a BBC Micro or a Commodore 64 shows booting used to be nigh-instantaneous.

Although Macintoshes and anything which booted OSes from floppies in the latter 80s had crawling boot times.

3

So is booting actually slower now? I know there are differences between my home computer and work. At work I have to go through various firewalls and sign in to various networks before I can do anything. At home, my computer is up and running right away, but any delay seems to reflect my wretched cable service.

4

It depends greatly on a number of factors. My work laptop as of a couple of years ago took a full 8 minutes to boot up and that was only the start of the authentication process because I had to log into other security systems after that. Now I have a solid state drive with Windows 7 and the bootup process is maybe 15 seconds.

Bootup times are not a consistent measure because they vary greatly over time and by setup. It is true that a Commodore 64 would boot very quickly in the 1980’s because the OS was stored in ROM but loading a program from a floppy disk to actually do anything with it was glacially slow (up to minutes for a minuscule 177kb).

My home computer has a regular hard drive and Windows 10. It still only takes about 45 seconds to boot up when I restart it which is way faster than the older Windows 7 computer that it replaced.

There is a big perception issue with this question. I work in corporate IT and one of the most frequent complaints that I get is some vague “slowness” problem. They usually are not real. Users typically just notice a lag because of a patch or other update being applied behind the scenes and become annoyed. What they don’t realize is that their computer just a few years ago was much slower than that all day, every day but they got accustomed to a new baseline and now every fraction of a second is much more important than it was back then in their mind at least. You can’t really win the speed wars because, no matter how fast it is, that becomes the new normal and anything slightly less fast than that becomes unacceptable.

5

Questions like this really depend on just how you phrase them. For instance, how long does it take for a business meeting with your branch office on the other side of the continent? Well, in olden days, you’d have to take a horse-drawn stagecoach to get there, and it’d take weeks, and then came the trains, and you could get there in days, and then came planes, and you could get there in hours. We don’t have any transportation faster than planes, so does that mean that we’ve stagnated for the past 80 years? Well… no, because now you can make it to that same business meeting in seconds, by having the meeting online.

6

Questions like this are subject to huge amounts of cherrypicking of individual anecdotes. Reading just about anything from a century or so ago you’ll find amazement at how the pace of life has increased tremendously. Yet at the same time, people used to comment at how congested cities were and how long it took for traffic to get across Manhattan or London. You can find articles “proving” that this hasn’t changed and that traffic in midtown averages 8 mph or whatever low speed you want today as well. Some things never change. Or at least peoples’ complaints that the world isn’t perfect never change.

The problem is that “pace of life” is a meaningless, subjective phrase. It’s not suited to GQ.

7

It takes paint longer to dry than it did 20 years ago.

8

This topic is very interesting, but it does belong in IMHO.

The phrase “pace of life” is subjective, but not meaningless.

This is the interesting part. The speed of travel, as the OP points out, changed dramatically when people could move faster than the walking pace of a human or horse. And for most of us, that hasn’t changed dramatically in our lifetime.

But the flow of information certainly has. Think of a time (if you’re older than 50-ish) when you had to wait for the afternoon paper to come out or the evening news to come on TV before you knew about a national or world event. Before that, and before my time, overseas correspondents had to film something and then physically transport the film back to the US in order for people to see it. Even when I was a kid, there were newsreels shown before movies in theaters. Yeah, people had heard about these events, but this might be the first time they saw the event.

Now people are “live-tweeting” (is there any other kind?) and filming/uploading events, revolutions, riots, crimes as they happen. And since (IMHO) real journalism is scarce, we just have all this information dumped on us with no perspective or analysis.

There are many other ways in which the “pace of life” is now moving at breakneck speed. Think about how in the past, even within not-so-distant memory, you could call someone at home on their only phone and if there was no answer, you just called back later. Now, if someone doesn’t answer, you text and ask your question anyway. This example is not directly about pace, but it’s about how it is harder than ever to be out of touch, silent, away, still–with no repercussions or consequences.

9

That’s not even a fair comparison, as the c64 OS was so minimal compared to today’s OSes. Just a minimal kernel and a BASIC interpreter. Windows boot times have actually gotten dramatically faster over the past 20-25 years for what that’s worth.

I wouldn’t say the pace of life has picked up in terms of how long things take; pizzas take just as long as before, the mail is just as slow, etc… Even computers aren’t really faster from the end-user perspective; they’re physically more capable, but we expect them to do more as well. Probably the biggest driver of perceived computer “speed” is the recent growth in high-bandwidth internet connections, not faster processors or more memory or whatever. But even there, we’re downloading MUCH more than we were, so it kind of evens out a little bit.

I also think that the OP is confusing increasing convenience with a pickup in pace. I mean, being able to browse a streaming video site and watch the movie then, instead of having to schlep yourself to the video store and walk around to find a movie, and then come home and watch it is definitely more convenient, but it’s a stretch IMO, to say that increases the pace of life. An analogy would be that the old inconvenience of going to the video store was like a pothole you had to slow down and steer around on an otherwise 40 mph road, while the streaming video option is that same road without the pothole. The speed limit didn’t change, but an impediment was removed.

As for something that does take more time… taking out the garbage. Used to be that you could just put all your garbage in the same can, then pile up the bags by the curb at pickup day. Now you have to sort your garbage into garbage and recycling, and take care of those separately in special city-issued rolling cans which may mean different days, or at the very least, it means two different cans to put the refuse into, and 2 to roll out, and roll in later on.

I agree with ThelmaLou; the biggest single change is the “always on” nature of modern day technological lifestyles. It doesn’t bother me in a personal sense, but when work starts to piggyback on that lifestyle, that’s where I draw the line. I do NOT need to be available 24/7 for work things; 99.99% of what I do can always wait until the following morning or Monday, and there’s no good reason for me to be bothered with work crap after hours.

10

Thanks all. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum, and I’m sure the mods will move it if they agree. I guess I placed it in GQ because I wondered if aspects of it WERE quantifiable, and I just lacked the data. For example, I really don’t know if various aspects of my computer’s performance are measurably faster or slower than before, as opposed to my perception. Heck - I acknowledge that I likely lack even the proper terms to describe much of what my computer is doing! :wink: But I thought measuring - and arguing about - these sorts of things was commonly done by economists, social scientists, etc.

I do acknowledge the tremendous element of perception. I’ll be frustrated when my computer takes even a couple of seconds to do something because it generally happens in a fraction of a second - and 20 years ago I would have been astounded if it had been done in 30 seconds.

11

Moderator Action

I think the OP intended to keep this as factual as possible, but the question does tend to elicit opinions. This thread will probably do better in IMHO, where opinions can be given along with factual cites.

Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

12

Life is certainly different today, than it was 100-200 years ago, but most people also look thru pink goggles at the good ol’times and how much time we used to have.
It took a load of time and effort to do stuff that’s simple to do these days, it was pretty fast paced then as well, people didn’t have free or spare time, it was all go-go-go sleep and the go again, just to maintain life.

We’re just using up all this gained free time on stuff like TV, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc…

What we call now child labor was the norm:

Cite
There was no time for Facebook or the cinema.

Then again…
My pos 25Mhz 1MB PC in 1992 booting up into DOS 6.2 took only seconds, where as my high-end gaming PC takes 40sec before I can really use it.
The difference is, what I can do with it afterwards or what it has to do.
Have a look at Ping Pong in 1972 1982 2007 to see the difference

64Kbwas powerful enough to get the Apollo to the moon, a duck-face on Facebook is bigger than 64Kb.

Websites used to be only 100kb big, since the internet speed was 5 Kbit/s.
Now we have moving pictures on websites and a simple website has 10MB, but we now have internet that is faster, yet it’s still to slow.
10 years ago 2Mbit/s was super fast internet, today that barely opens up google.

Cars drive faster, planes are cheaper and safer - we’re sure getting farther faster, but we’re still waiting and traveling.

Let’s take a letter, it took weeks to get from the Pope to Henry VII took easily 4-6 weeks to arrive in 1080AD, meaning it took 8-12 weeks to wait for a reply depending on weather and time of the year.
And the poor sod, that was delivering that letter was going nonstop on a horse - he was doing nothing else but ride, eat and had little sleep.

Nowadays a letter would take 1-3 days for that.

Or email will take around 1sec to 10min.

13

Right, but I was trying to initiate a discussion on more recent times, as many of your comments reflect.

I’m not sure how much faster the top speeds of consumer or racecars are today combined to the 1980s-90s, but many speed limits are lower than when I was a kid in the 60s-70s.

Are today’s jet planes faster than 20 years ago? Certainly not the SST. And then add in the hours of imposed stasis due to airport security theater. I used to be the guy who would “OJ” to the gate at the last minute…

I’d imagine there are more and more prepared foods available, which would likely reduce meal prep time, even though conventional and microwave ovens don’t cook any faster.

14

**Doughbag **(love the name BTW), I think what’s happened is that we’ve come to think it’s BETTER to get a message instantly than to wait 3-4 days for a letter to arrive and then another 3-4 days for the reply to get back to us. My question is: IS that really better, meaning is the quality of our lives better now that we can exchange hundreds of messages in the time that it took one letter to get to its destination? And not 100 years ago, but more like 40 years ago.

Yeah, it took a lot of time and effort to do things. But was that so bad? Straight question-- was it? I believe the answer is that some things are definitely better because they can be done faster and some, not so much.

I’m not complaining or looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. As I’ve alluded to in other places, I’ve been dealing with my mother who is 91 and lives 1,000 miles away. The fact that I can get messages from her caregivers as soon as something happens or as soon as they need a decision is what makes it possible for me to live so far away. If it were not for the phone/internet (calling, texting, email), I’d have to move there or move her here. (I may still do the latter, but it CAN be done long distance.)

Being always on demand for work is one thing, but we’re also always on demand for personal connection, too. I read an article in the Washington Post yesterday by a mother who realized that by giving her children cell phones for safety, she established the expectation that they would/could NEVER be out of touch. How oppressive never to have a moment when mom can’t get hold of you.

15

Getting from point A to point B on any urban freeway during rush hour (which more and more is coming to mean 24/7) seems to be getting slower and slower.

16

Re: Personal computers taking longer to boot than formerly:

Even shutting down a computer takes longer. Used to be, back in the days of DOS and other personal computers of that pre-Winders era, to procedure for shutting a computer down was simple: You just flipped the power switch to OFF, and it was OFF. Just like shutting off your TV or radio.

(And in those days, the power switch really was a direct power switch, not just some logical signal to a smart power supply requesting it to shut itself off after a while, as in modern computers.)

17

Yes, I agree. But one of the reasons I originally posted in GQ, was because I hoped folk might respond with traffic studies and such.

Here in Chicago, parts of the Eisenhower, the Dan Ryan, the Stevenson, and the Kennedy/Edens split have pretty much sucked for my entire driving life, tho it does seem as though the slowest periods (rush hours) are lengthening.

I wonder if there was an elysian period back in the late 50s-early 70s as the interstate system was developed and before car ownership expanded, when the roads were sufficient to bear the traffic loads?

18

One thing that’s getting faster and faster (especially since, like, a century ago) and we’re glad of it: Dentists’ drills.

19

I think you’re onto something… sort of a point of diminishing returns. We can fly across country in four-five hours once we get on the plane and it gets in the air. But you have to get to the airport two hours early and stand in a long line. Still quicker than going by covered wagon, but instead of the process getting faster and more efficient in a linear fashion, it’s now bogged down.

I saw an old James Bond movie recently where Bond jumps out of a taxi at the airport and basically strides onto the plane without stopping for anything. I remember those days. In the mid-'70s, I had a consulting job in a city about 250 miles from where I lived (and still live). I commuted for several weeks (on Southwest, which at the time, was known as the “Hot Pants” airline), and it was just as easy as getting on a bus.

Today, far from being the glamorous treat of the past, flying is about as glamorous as traveling by bus. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

When I was growing up in the San Fernando Valley (part of Los Angeles) during the 1950’s and 1960’s, the part of U. S. Highway 101 going through there was already a parking lot during rush hour, and quite heavy traffic the rest of the time.

I spent a substantial part of my adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, where traffic was not nearly so bad during, say, the 1970’s and into the 1980’s. But it’s been getting steadily worse and worse over the last 40 years, and there’s a lot of on-freeway parking lot now that wasn’t the case back then.

One visible measure of that is the steadily increasing appearances of those on-ramp metering stop-lights.