Mobility - Social Acceleration

Mobility as a branch of social science is trying to explore movement of people and

objects in a physical space. Instead of seeing movement as an aftereffect of our social
lives, geographies of mobility keep the notion of moving as a central focus (Creswell &
Merriman, 2011). Having movement as a cornerstone of our study, we need to address
the implications that mobility brings into play.

In his book, Social Acceleration, Rosa (2015) breaks down social acceleration into three
fundamental processes: technical acceleration, the acceleration of social change, and the
acceleration of the pace of life. These processes are closely intertwined and have a direct
impact on each other. In this short essay I’ll be discussing the phenomenon of social
acceleration from a personal perspective and its impact on an individual.

Fundamental question to ask is what drives social acceleration? One of the main
approaches that argues for social acceleration is the consequence of an anthropological
or even biological principle, where speed is the main factor of survival. This closely
correlates to Darwinian evolutionary theory of the “survival of the fittest” as a way of
describing the mechanism of natural selection, in which only the fittest will survive and
reproduce. Rosa & Scheuerman (2009) states “high-speed society clearly privileges the
capacity to adapt at a rapid pace to ever-changing circumstances. It demands flexibility
on the part of the individual in the context of changing opportunity structures and high
rates of contingency.“

The world is moving faster than ever before and it’s very unlikely it is going to stop. The
overwhelming number of technical, social and cultural innovations aimed to free us and
give us more time, yet we have become to abuse the expression “I am busy” as never
before. It is not because these innovations are not helping us to free-up time or to use our
time more efficiently, in fact they do, rather they have heightened the tempo of life and
left us with a sense of time pressure and being compelled to accelerate. Rosa (2015)
argues that two natural causes for the feeling of time pressure are the fear of missing out
and the compulsion to adapt.

“Fear of missing out” otherwise known as FOMO gives us a feeling that if we're not
constantly present, online and up to date we might miss on something interesting or
important. Whereas, compulsion to adopt is a consequence of acceleration of social
change, this results into a feeling of constantly being behind everybody else. “Even in
those intervals of time during which a subject has free time resources at her disposal, her
surroundings continue to change at a rapid pace. After they have passed, she will have
fallen behind the times in many respects and consequently be compelled to catch up”
(Rosa & Trejo-Mathys, 2015).
Rosa (2015) therefore suggests a slowdown as a strategy of acceleration. A purposeful
deceleration to cope with the swift-paced everyday life, but not to be confused with the
efforts of any ideological countermovement against acceleration.
Every individual should learn to slow down and accept the limitation of their own body
and mind. Being mindful and living in the present moment will not only have a positive
effect on person’ well being, but on a society as a whole.

Literature
Rosa, H., & Trejo-Mathys, J. (2015). Social acceleration. New York: Columbia University
Press.

Cresswell, T. & Merriman, P. (Eds.) (2011). Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces,

Subjects. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate.

Rosa, H., & Scheuerman, W. (2009). High-speed society. University Park, Pa.:
Pennsylvania State University Press.