Here's a thought: what if it's less that the rate of change is increasing and more that our mental models of the world tend to solidify as we age such that the perceived rate of change of the world increases. This is more an observation of the "the world was a lot simpler when I was young" mentality rather than a comment on the long range compounding effects of technology though they might be related.
You deffo have something there, we do ossify if we aren’t careful or we aren’t naturally childlike (Feynman type curiosity), but I think it’s also true that acceleration is happening.
I mean that’s pretty objective.
In my own lifetime (only in my 40’s!) social norms and expectations have rapidly changed as has the constant sense of urgency injected into the zeitgeist by profit making 24hr news and social media.
Propaganda was something you read about in history books (naively) not something you were bombarded with constantly by both anti and pro political positions.
When teens went home they had relief from social pressure now they are never, ever, alone with their thoughts.
Fall asleep clutching their iPhones wake up to 100 missed messages.
Ever seen a normally popular teens phone light up? I got a sense of panic and said ‘what’s wrong? What’s happened?’ And they just looked at me weird. What? This is normal?
My phone only blows up like that when there is a disaster!
I have a minimum of notifications turned on. I'll sometimes be in a work group chat for a customer meeting or something. But otherwise push notification traffic is pretty low. And sometimes I'm polling a lot but I can turn that off.
wish all the teens (and adults, at least the adults) were so intentional and in control. Most most most people are really not in control over their phone use; no one can deny that.
It's kind of interesting that emotionally I agree with that feeling, but if you just look at the fact that I'm reading what you wrote in real time from the most remote island chain in the world, and with a couple of finger swipes I could switch apps and buy a buggy whip with one click...I mean just imagine what you would have to do to buy a buggy whip in 1985.
It's a device for motivating horses to pull your carriage, which was high tech at one time but was obsoleted by the introduction of the motor car. It became a metaphor for technologies obsoleted by other advancements. The irony is that in the olden days, from my perspective, it would have been a massive pain in the ass to get one, because you'd probably have to mail a check to some Amish mail order company and wait a month, but now I can just click over to Amazon and get it in two days.
It might also be increased awareness of changes. There are many things in my personal history that I viewed as normal, constant things, but that were actually changing significantly all the while I was learning about their natures.
> mental models of the world tend to solidify as we age
Mental models solidifying over time might be true. But "acceleration" is a shared experience for entire generations (of peers). It seems a broad enough experience that it is more than perceived. Like a grandma is content to read books instead of being on top of HN, etc.
Solidified mental models also gives perspective on life and its direction.
And people tend to converge on few similar timeless mental models on a meta level.
> long range compounding effects of technology
It's correct, most modern systems are enabled by better tech at its root. But the collective will of humanity (at least right now) is to leverage tech to push it further. Instead of a sinusoid where we take time to fix unintended side-effects we created (like pollution, resource depletion, re-assess education, etc).
Sure but there is definitely more access to info about what is happening in the world so stuff someone might've had simplistic view on 20 years ago now can be researched and looked at by anyone that wants.
I also think the fact many people work in not really all that creatively stimulating jobs to begin with have a lot of effect on that. When you are at school you learn something new every day and are occasionally facing different mental challenges, when you work at retail not really.
