Who in the world wound the clock That s a legitimate question Although due to technological progress we have more time than ever before it seems to be passing faster and faster by Wiebke Brauer STOP Time is what you read on a clock The quote is at tributed to Albert Einstein and it would be great if things were that easy Time always seems to fly and flee to press and push to slip through our fingers or to be consumed and stolen Time can t be stopped gained saved or let alone be defeated And although the likes of Shakespeare Goethe Marx or Proust were concerned even in their day about the rapid acceleration of life s pace the feeling of constantly being rushed and unable to do anything about it is a key characteristic of our mod ern accelerated society Taking one step at a time That if at all is a thing of the past Although we live longer time s in short supply Now it s not that people today have fewer hours at their disposal than they did in the days of Shakespeare Quite the opposite is true Aside from the fact that as scientists found out a day on Earth has become a mil lisecond longer in the past century we also live longer and work less The average life expectancy in Germa ny for instance has doubled in the past 130 years and about 100 years ago people here used to work 57 hours per week on average Today it s 35 Travel times have been shortened as well Since the days of the industrial revolution the world seems to have shrunk to about a sixtieth of its original size writes the sociologist Hartmut Rosa While in the 18th century it took a whole month to get from London to New York today an airliner will take us there in about eight hours Trains let alone automobiles travel faster than they used to as well On the other hand cars in Berlin move at an average speed of about 24 kilometers 15 miles per hour That used to be the speed of stage coaches at the beginning of the 19th century so maybe the best way to go is for us humans to get a move on Apparently that s exactly what we re doing because the walking pace of pe destrians in industrial countries has actually increased by ten percent within just a single decade Ultimately almost all technological advances be it elevators or digitization served to save time and so would have had to provide us with more of it But noth ing could be further from the truth Instead of enjoying the time we ve gained at our leisure we re constantly 44 45

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