Welcome to the Pace of Life Project
Prof Richard Wiseman has announced the results of an international study in collaboration with the British Council to measure the speed of life. You can read about the work below, and find out if you are living life in the fast lane by completing our short quiz here.
The experiment was conducted by British Council researchers who secretly timed thousands of pedestrians’ speed of walking in city centres across the globe, including London, Madrid, Singapore, and New York.
A study carried out in the early 1990s demonstrated that pedestrians’ speed of walking provides a reliable measure of the pace of life in a city, and that people in fast-moving cities are less likely to help others and have higher rates of coronary heart disease. Using identical methods to those employed in the previous work, the present day research teams discovered that the pace of life is now 10% faster than in the early 1990s. The biggest changes were found in the Far East, with the pace of life in Guangzhou (China) increasing by over 20%, and Singapore showing a 30% increase, resulting in it becoming the fastest moving city in the study.
Prof. Richard Wiseman said: `This simple measurement provides a significant insight into the physical and social health of a city. The pace of life in our major cities is now much quicker than before. This increase in speed will affect more people than ever, because for the first time in history the majority of the world’s population are now living in urban centres.’
Surprisingly, London ranked outside the top ten, suggesting that many in the capital prefer to live life in the slow lane compared to Copenhagen and Madrid who proved to be the fastest European cities, whilst the Middle East tended to have the slowest pace of life.
The experiment was conducted by British Council researchers who secretly timed thousands of pedestrians’ speed of walking in city centres across the globe, including London, Madrid, Singapore, and New York.
A study carried out in the early 1990s demonstrated that pedestrians’ speed of walking provides a reliable measure of the pace of life in a city, and that people in fast-moving cities are less likely to help others and have higher rates of coronary heart disease. Using identical methods to those employed in the previous work, the present day research teams discovered that the pace of life is now 10% faster than in the early 1990s. The biggest changes were found in the Far East, with the pace of life in Guangzhou (China) increasing by over 20%, and Singapore showing a 30% increase, resulting in it becoming the fastest moving city in the study.
Prof. Richard Wiseman said: `This simple measurement provides a significant insight into the physical and social health of a city. The pace of life in our major cities is now much quicker than before. This increase in speed will affect more people than ever, because for the first time in history the majority of the world’s population are now living in urban centres.’
Surprisingly, London ranked outside the top ten, suggesting that many in the capital prefer to live life in the slow lane compared to Copenhagen and Madrid who proved to be the fastest European cities, whilst the Middle East tended to have the slowest pace of life.
Find out more about the method used in this study here.
Find out if you are living life in the fast lane by completing our short quiz here.
Op het eerste gezicht lijken tijd en globalisering -- de twee grote thema's van dit essay -- weinig met elkaar te maken te hebben. Bij de ervaring van tijd denken we aan persoonlijke, ja zelfs intieme belevenissen, bij globalisering aan wereldwijde politieke en economische ontwikkelingen.Hans Achterhuis laat zien dat er wel degelijk veel verbanden bestaan tussen beide zaken. Enerzijds wordt het globaliseringsproces al eeuwen voortgestuwd door een typisch westers tijdsbewustzijn, anderzijds dwingt het iedereen tot een voortdurende versnelling van een eigen leven. De vraag die wij ons moeten stellen is in hoeverre de huidige vorm van het globaliseringsproces ons mogelijkheden laat voor een eigen invulling en beleving van onze levenstijd.