Publish at May 06 2026 Updated May 06 2026
Today, a screen that takes three seconds to load is enough to cause annoyance. At the same time, waiting two hours in the emergency room has become almost ordinary. This banal scene says something about our times: we're not simply experiencing general acceleration, but the coexistence of contradictory speeds. In other words, not everything is accelerating, and it is precisely this desynchronization that creates tension.
Some fields have seen a spectacular compression of time. In the 1970s, an international letter took between 7 and 15 days to reach its recipient. Today, a business email requires a response within 24 to 48 hours, and an instant message within a day, sometimes an hour (CNIL, 2023). Correspondence time has collapsed.
Waiting thresholds have aligned with this instantaneousness. A web page that takes more than 3 seconds to load loses a significant proportion of its users (Deloitte, 2022). In physical services, studies now place the impatience threshold at around 2 to 3 minutes in urban contexts.
Even cultural forms are being reconfigured. In the 1990s, Billboard tracks averaged around 4 minutes in length. Today, many popular tracks oscillate between 2 min 30 and 3 minutes (Mulligan, 2021). The format is adjusting to a fragmented attention economy.
This dynamic corresponds to what Hartmut Rosa describes as an increase in the number of actions per unit of time. But this reading, while accurate, remains incomplete.
In the face of these accelerations, many indicators show a surprising stability. Human walking speed, for example, remains between 4.5 and 5.5 km/h in major cities, with little change since the 1980s. The body does not follow the rhythm of machines.
Commuting time is another invariant. Since the 1970s, it has hovered around one hour a day. In France, it is now estimated at between 50 and 60 minutes a day (INSEE, 2020). Speed gains have been absorbed by the increasing distance between living areas.
Life trajectories, too, are not accelerating uniformly. The average age of first sexual intercourse in France is around 17.5 years, and is tending to stabilize(INSERM, 2022 ). Access to the first car is later than thirty years ago, particularly in urban areas (INSEE, 2023). The age of initiation to alcohol and tobacco is dropping slightly as a result of prevention policies (Santé publique France, 2022).
Traditional knowledge offers another perspective. In companionship societies, an apprentice can repeat a gesture for months before being recognized. Skill isn't taught in a few hours: it's learned over time, through contact with materials and masters. Similarly, in certain initiation rituals described by ethnologists, learning involves waiting, silence and repetition. Long time is not an obstacle, but a condition for transformation.
These examples remind us of an often overlooked fact: living beings learn slowly. They sediment, incorporate and transform.
What characterizes our times, then, is not a uniform acceleration, but a desynchronization of rhythms. Digital spheres are racing ahead, while physical, social and institutional spheres remain slow.
The healthcare system is a striking illustration of this. In France, more than 40% of emergency room visits exceed a two-hour waiting time (DREES, 2023). Yet impatience is growing. Not because waiting times are exploding, but because our expectations have been reconfigured by digital immediacy.
In the workplace, this tension is just as visible. Exchanges demand almost immediate reactivity, while decisions, learning or organizational transformations require time. The result is a form of temporal dissonance: we have to respond quickly in systems that evolve slowly.
From a philosophical point of view, this situation invites us to shift our perspective. The problem is not speed per se, but the gap between speeds that have become incompatible. Learning, deciding and transforming require long temporalities that acceleration cannot abolish.
The question then becomes pedagogical and political: how can these rhythms be re-articulated? Should we slow down, or learn to navigate between different speeds? Probably both. It's not so much a question of rejecting acceleration as of restoring a place for long timeframes, those of understanding, relationship and experience.
Because, in the end, what doesn't accelerate may be what counts most: the body, relationships, and learning that transforms in the long term.
References
CNIL. (2023). Usages numériques et attentes de réactivité. Paris. Https://www.cnil.fr/fr/la-cnil-publie-son-rapport-annuel-2023
Deloitte. 2022. Digital consumer trends. London. Https://www.deloitte.com/uk/en/Industries/tmt/collections/digital-consumer-trends-uk-2022.html
DREES. (2023). Les urgences hospitalières: fréquentation et temps d'attente. Paris. Https://drees.solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/publications-communique-de-presse/etudes-et-resultats/250319_ER_urgences-la-moitie-des-patients-y-restent-plus-of-three-hours-in-2023
INSEE. (2020). Mobilités quotidiennes et temps de transport. Paris. Https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/7630376
INSEE. (2023). Automobile equipment and lifestyles. Paris.
INSERM. (2022). Contextes des sexualités en France. https://www.inserm.fr/actualite/sante-vie-affective-et-sexuelle-lancement-de-la-3e-etude-nationale
Mulligan, M. (2021). The state of music streaming. MIDiA Research. https://www.midiaresearch.com/reports/category/music-streaming
Santé publique France. (2022). Alcohol and tobacco use among young people. https://www.drogues.gouv.fr/parution-des-resultats-de-lenquete-enclass-2022-de-lofdt
You might also like:
Actions to stimulate the youth press in Africa
With a steadily growing young population, the children's print media market offers untapped potential. This article presents the current state of the children's press in Africa, and suggests seven ways to strengthen the sector.
AI levers for which development?
The mutual learning of the algorithm and the human will produce major transformations between voluntary dispossession and involuntary servitude. The AI learns to answer, the human learns to question.
The nature class: a positive response to the current sedentary lifestyle
A large part of children's time is spent using screens. Whether at home or at school, digital technology is almost constant and requires a lot of immobility. Thus, some schools and teachers decide to adopt an outdoor teaching method where a large part of the lessons take place outdoors. This is a way to get back in touch with nature and reduce passive time.
From cog to human: regaining control of your life in a world of injunctions
Taking back the reins of your life doesn't mean rejecting everything. It doesn't mean refusing all authority or living outside the rules. It does mean one simple thing: ask yourself the question before you act. Why am I doing this?
The return to traditional techniques in culture and agriculture
Should intensive agriculture give way to organic agriculture or to agriculture where reasoned techniques are back? Most probably!
