The Pace of Progress Is Breaking Us

We humans are no strangers to change. We have adapted and evolved through ice ages, plagues, wars, revolutions, and the invention of everything from the wheel to the World Wide Web. But while change itself has always been a constant, what is markedly different today is the sheer pace of it. And that, perhaps more than anything, is what’s testing our psychological and emotional limits.

The issue isn’t that we’re resistant to change, far from it. Our history is full of stories of human ingenuity, resilience, and reinvention. What we’re struggling with now is how fast we’re expected to pivot, upgrade, unlearn, and relearn.

An Evolutionary Lag

Our brains evolved in a world of relative stability, seasonal changes, small social groups and slow cultural shifts. For thousands of years, the tools we used, the roles we played, and the values we lived by changed at a pace that allowed our brains to keep up. Now, the cycle of change has gone into hyperdrive.

Technologist Ray Kurzweil famously talks about the Law of Accelerating Returns: the idea that technological progress is exponential, not linear. In simple terms, the future is arriving faster than we can absorb it. The phones in our pockets have more computing power than NASA had during the moon landings. New jobs are emerging while others are disappearing in a single decade, entire industries are transforming overnight, and AI can learn faster than we can teach it.

But while our tools have evolved, our mental software hasn't received the same upgrade. Evolution doesn’t run on two-year update cycles, and as Richard Dawkins warns, there's a growing mismatch between the speed of technological change and the much slower pace of our psychological and biological evolution.

We're running modern software on ancient hardware.

A Historical Perspective on Change

Consider the transition from the agrarian age to the industrial era. That shift unfolded over generations. Yes, it brought disruption, urbanisation, and profound social change, but it happened slowly enough that societies could absorb the shock, create institutions, and pass down new norms. Families adapted across lifespans, not quarterly earnings reports.

Contrast that with today. In the time it takes for a child to go from primary school to university, entire industries will have emerged, peaked, and restructured. Skillsets that were once rock-solid career foundations are now outdated within a decade. In some sectors, like tech and media, it’s closer to five years.

We are living through what sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls “social acceleration”, a state where technological, institutional, and personal change occurs so rapidly that our present feels permanently provisional. We never settle. We never arrive. Instead, we scroll.

The Human Cost of Acceleration

So, what’s the consequence of this relentless pace? Increasingly, it’s stress, anxiety, burnout, and a deep sense of disconnection.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. Surgeon General, has pointed to the speed and unpredictability of modern work life as a key driver of the current mental health crisis. A 2024 study published in Humanities & Social Sciences Communications linked rapid AI adoption to rising job stress and burnout. The root issue wasn’t necessarily the technology itself; it was how fast people were expected to adapt to it without support.

We’ve even coined new terms to capture this phenomenon. "Technostress" refers to the pressure we feel to keep up with constant upgrades, notifications, interfaces, and information flows. We're overstimulated, overinformed, and under-rested.

And it isn’t just the workplace. Our personal lives are now caught in the same slipstream. Social media encourages us to reinvent our identities daily, parenting feels like navigating a constantly updating user manual, and even rest has become a productivity metric, with sleep apps and wearable tech tracking how efficiently we recharge.

Are We Nearing a Tipping Point?

All of this raises serious questions: If we keep accelerating, do we risk a kind of societal burnout? Will we see increasing numbers of people opting out, unable to keep pace? Or worse, will we normalise this tempo to the point that we no longer notice the toll it's taking?

There is a psychological phenomenon known as "creeping normality" or "the boiling frog effect": when gradual changes become the new normal, even if they are ultimately harmful. The danger isn’t just in the speed itself, but in becoming numb to it.

Some argue we already have. The dopamine-driven cycles of digital life have shortened our attention spans, fractured our focus, and made depth feel like a luxury. The irony? We are more connected than ever and yet more mentally fragmented.

Don’t Wait for the System to Save You

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: governments and corporations have no incentive to slow things down.

Faster economies mean more growth. Faster workers mean more profit. Faster tech means more power. Your exhaustion isn’t their KPI.

Sure, we’ll hear talk of “well-being initiatives” and “employee support programmes,” but these are often sticking plasters on a broken tempo. In reality, the system is designed to accelerate, not to protect your nervous system from burnout.

So, we have a choice.

We either get swept along in the name of productivity and progress…

Or we reclaim the pace of our own lives.

That means:

• Saying no when everything says go.

• Creating boundaries where none exist.

• Defining success by meaning, not metrics.

• Living with intention, not expectation.

The world will keep speeding up. The question is: Will you keep matching its pace, or find your own?

What Might a Healthier Pace Look Like?

There is no going back to a pre-digital world. But there is a conversation to be had about pace. About designing technology, workplaces, and lives that honour human rhythms. That provides breathing space. That allows for reflection, recovery, and resonance.

Sociologist Hartmut Rosa suggests we create what he calls “temporal anchors”, slower, recurring patterns in life that give us orientation and coherence. Others point to the need for better psychological safety in work environments, so that adaptation doesn't mean emotional depletion.

And at a broader level, perhaps we need to culturally recalibrate our definition of progress. Not everything that moves fast is good. Not everything that’s slow is obsolete.

A Call to Consciously Decelerate

We are not anti-change. We are simply overwhelmed. What we need isn’t resistance to evolution, but room to evolve, space to think, permission to pause and time to catch our breath between updates.

If we don’t name this as a problem, we risk letting speed set the terms of human life. And the cost of that, mentally, emotionally, socially, is one we may not be able to afford.

The question isn’t whether change will happen. It always has, and always will. The real question is: can we make peace with the pace? Or will the pace itself break us?

It’s not a technological issue. It’s a human one.