How much has the pace of life sped up recently?

[ZipperJJ]

It takes longer to get through an airport now. At least in the US.

[Senegoid]

@ThelmaLou

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.

What this means, in practice, is that it takes a steadily longer trip (in miles) from Point A to Point B before it pays off (in total travel time) to fly.

Flying from Los Angeles to New York used to be the fast way to make that trip, and I suppose still is. Flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco, in contrast, is iffy. Used to be, flying was quickest. Now you can just about make that trip as fast by car. (This is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but not much.)

[Doughbag]

@ThelmaLou

**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.

This paste thing, there’s not a straight yes or no, better or worse answer, because it’s both - at least for me.

Let’s see…
There is frozen mashed potatoes available in my supermarket, it tastes like done from fresh potatoes, since it is.
It’s in my freezer!
Yet, I still peel potatoes and cook it from scratch on the weekend or when I have time to do it. Why?
Because I like the process of cooking my dinner, it gives me some gratification to eat it afterwards.
But when I’m getting home late from work and just want to eat and eat now, the frozen stuff is it.

It amazed my Grandma when I was able to have a VideoChat via Skype from Ireland back to Blackforest in Germany.
And yes, it’s amazing when your insurance asks you to get some document and you can just email them the stuff straight away.

Being available 24/7 via the mobile phone can be annoying at times, yet it’s also a blessing.

I would say, things are more instant rather than being life being faster.
The older we get, the more things we need to do in the day and the less time we have till the clock runs out.

[Doughbag]

@Dinsdale

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.

That’s speed limits, which is due to more traffic and accidents at higher speeds. Cite
Even the German Autobahn is mostly now limited to 120km/h.
Land speed records show, that we do get faster tho.

Planes fly slower however (Cite1 Cite2) to save fuel.

[ThelmaLou]

@Dinsdale

…

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

…

Please note that my tongue is in my cheek.

Here’s something that’s taking longer…
“Are The New Credit Cards Chipping Away At Our Patience?”(NPR)

As a recent Planet Money podcast episode calculated, it sometimes takes six to 15 seconds for a chip card to be read. Compare that with the less-than-one-second swipe of your conventional credit card.

My bold.

Those are five to fourteen seconds we’ll never get back.

[Dinsdale]

Another thing that is longer - trying to get competent service over the phone. Yeah, feel free to try to convince me of the wonders of on-line support, but there are times that you really just want to pick up the phone and talk to a human who will connect you to someone who has a chance of helping you. Now, chances are you’ll fight through a phone tree, be put on hold, and end up with some clueless person directing you to the website.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Dinsdale

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?

No.
The main roads were already clogged with commuter traffic at rush hour – that was part of the reason that interstate freeways were built. They did improve long-distance travel, since many rural roads were in very poor (slow) condition. But in cities, the traffic just expanded as the freeways did – they allowed people to live in suburbs even farther out from their jobs.

But the congestion in cities doesn’t matter much – they were designed to speed interstate travel, supposedly for military transport (though that may be just the excuse used to get the needed votes during the cold war era).

[monstro]

Maybe not exactly what you’re looking for, but people are taking longer hitting those traditional milestones of successful adulthood. Getting married, buying a home, making a family, getting a “good” job, etc.

[ThelmaLou]

@monstro

Maybe not exactly what you’re looking for, but people are taking longer hitting those traditional milestones of successful adulthood. Getting married, buying a home, making a family, getting a “good” job, etc.

I guess you could say Growing Up is taking longer these days than it ever has.

[Martini_Enfield]

Certainly in my lifetime I’ve noticed an increase in the affordability of air travel - when I was a kid in the 1980s, flying anywhere was A Big Deal, and even throughout the 1990s people (at least in NZ) didn’t generally jump on a plane on a whim for a long weekend; it cost as much to fly from Christchurch to Auckland as it did to go to Brisbane and you might as well go somewhere sunny and grab some duty free on the way back, right?

Nowadays, you can get flights for pretty (sometimes ludicrously) cheap amounts and it’s not uncommon at all for people to from from City A to City B first thing in the morning, spend the day in City B then fly home to City A in the evening.

In the spriti of the OP, I’d suggest car travel takes longer now in big cities than it used to. Even travelling by public transport can take longer, because there’s simply more people using the same resources (roads, buses, railway carriages etc).

[Quartz]

@Dinsdale

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

Probably farmers notice the least change. They still harvest crops the same number of times per year that they did a thousand years ago. Animals are still born once per year. And so on. They now need less help to do more, of course.