Affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has become a routine. We are changing rapidly in the digital world, and in a few minutes, we can talk to people in different countries of the world. But our bodies stand almost motionless against the computer screen, sometimes unconsciously for a day. This state of rapid transfer in virtual space and numbness and stagnation in real life makes us feel as if the passage of time has become faster. The phenomenon of "acceleration" caused by the digitization process, which has become more prominent because of the epidemic, has also attracted the attention of Hartmut Rosa, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Jena in Germany.
As early as 2005, Rosa proposed the acceleration theory (Beschleunigung), arguing that the three factors that cause social acceleration are the acceleration of scientific and technological progress, the acceleration of social change, and the acceleration of the pace of life. Driven by acceleration, people are coerced into doing things that are not out of their minds, which is the formation of "alienation". To solve this problem, Rosa suggested a "resonanz" solution.
So as the pace of digitalization accelerates, what is the difference between this digital acceleration and the acceleration brought about by past industrialization? Can resonance also occur in virtual spaces?
Rosa believes that the difference between digitalization and industrialization is that it has reached a new level of speed. Rather than blaming the ills of digital technology, it is the result of a modern competitive society. Although they can resonate in virtual situations, they will lack expression and physical interaction with each other. Sharing the same physical space is even more important for empathy.
Reporter | Wu Si
Edited | Qiu Lian
Sanlian Humanistic City: Let's start with your trip to China in the first two years. In terms of development speed, China is very dazzling. What did you find in China?
Rosa: The city is always the central point of acceleration. My first stop in China was in Shanghai, where I felt the most. I can't forget the conversation with a Shanghainese. I thought that the "old Shanghai" that people called referred to the Shanghai of the 18th or 19th century, and what he said was only the Shanghai of 20 years ago. And even if they were built around 1990, many of them may no longer exist. From the perspective of many Europeans, this rapid urban change is difficult to imagine. When Europeans talk about ancient architecture, usually refer to the architecture of the 16th or 17th century, or even earlier. We can see that in China's accelerated urban development, people's understanding of the words "old", "long", and "familiar" has become different.
This is a great example of the acceleration in social change as defined in my 2005 book Acceleration: The Changing Structure of Time in Modern Society: the world is changing its face at shorter intervals. One of the characteristics of classical modernity is that each generation is born out of a new world. Each generation has a whole new mission, to find their own career, to start their own family, to build their own house. In Shanghai, for example, the rate of change here no longer corresponds to this intergenerational model, but to achieve intergenerational speed – no job position, house, or even family arrangement can last a lifetime. When you wake up, everything may be new and different. This belongs to a characteristic of late modernity.
Shanghai's old building © violetism
Sanlian Humanistic City: The development speed of the real society is one thing. From people's perception, it seems that time has passed faster after the epidemic has been at home. Do you feel the same way? And how to explain it?
Rosa: Exactly. This is a "psychological time paradox" caused by perception – the epidemic has reduced outdoor activities while increasing people's dependence on screens. At the moment I'm interviewing you on the computer screen, and in a moment I'm going to revise my paper against the screen. All day long I sat still, working on work tasks one by one, each with a tight deadline to complete. When I go to bed at night, I think back to the day and seem to have done nothing but sit in a chair facing the computer screen.
In fact, this was already the case before the epidemic. The digital process allows us to do almost everything on the screen. I use my phone to work, to play, to search for everything I need. Last second, I probably received an interview invitation from China, which was amazing! The next second, I saw the news of my friend's death, and my mood instantly became very bad. In the past, people would work in a fixed location, and when they came home, they would spend family time with their families, living a life where the time and place were stable. But the way we interact with the world now is a form of flow. Because of mobile connected devices, we can always receive requests from work, family, friends, and even banks and insurance companies, and we feel as if we are drowning in a sea of needs. But it's quite possible that when we're dealing with these things on our phone screens, there's no change in the location of the environment.
Anna Tarazevich, who works ©from home during the pandemic
I call this digital device-centric single life the "mono channel" model, and it gradually becomes our pattern to the entire world. In order to make this model more efficient, we are also constantly improving the speed and transmission speed of digital devices. But the truth is, we still feel like we don't have enough time.
Sanlian Humanistic City: What is the difference between the acceleration brought about by this digital technology and the acceleration produced by industrialization in the past? Should the discomfort that people experience be blamed on the drawbacks of digital technology?
Rosa: The difference between digitalization and industrialization is that it has reached a new level of speed. The movement of the vehicle is a visible speed, and the other speed is the high-speed flow of various data information through the fiber optic cable invisibly.
Traffic development can lead to congestion, and everyone squeezing into the website at the same time may also bring about the collapse of the website, which is a side effect of acceleration. Compared to these side effects, "alienation" is more uncomfortable. For example, in more and more places, machine interaction replaces human-to-human interaction. Many people face the efficiency of machines, and develop a sense of self-frustration and alienation from the world. This is what I call "alienation." Cities are where the sense of alienation is strongest.
More and more machines interact with ©cottonbro
I don't think digital technology should be blamed on these problems, because accelerating this phenomenon has been going on for a long time since the era of industrialization. Digital technology is the closest step in the accelerated logic of the pace of life, but it is not the origin of the accelerated logic.
Triptych Humanities City: So what is the origin of this accelerated logic? Why are people constantly looking for ways to speed up, even if the speed is unbearable?
Rosa: One of the reasons for the acceleration is that modern market drivers have led to a competitive society. We can see comparisons and competition at all levels of society. There is competition between individuals, from kindergarten to university to companies, and between countries and nations.
When people are in a competitive environment, it becomes important to do optimization, which I call "parameter optimization". For example, people are increasingly measuring their lives by the values displayed on various electronic devices. Number of steps per day, heart rate, sleep quality, or oxygen levels in the blood, etc. There are also some social media performances, such as the number of likes. There are more and more parameters of life, and competition prompts people to constantly optimize. The more parameters that need to be optimized and the more scarce time there is, the more important it becomes to accelerate. The chain of competition is that if there is acceleration, there is backwardness, so it must be accelerated again, and it evolves into mutual promotion between each other.
There is a difference between a person who has lived in a big city for 20 years and a person who has lived in a small village all his life. This pursuit of competition and speed has been engraved in the body and soul of urban people. Do you feel restless if the other person speaks too long or too slowly during a conversation, or if the other person doesn't respond quickly to a message? This is because speed and optimization are already remembered by the body. Just like in the days of the epidemic lockdown, it is clear that where to go, it should save a lot of time, but people use digital devices to continuously improve work efficiency, and are full of expectations for winning in the competition.
Another source and driver of acceleration is fear, fear that you will fall behind, lose, or be forgotten. However, it is also inaccurate to simply describe this mentality as "fear". Because it contains hope and longing. This has to do with how we think about "happiness" now.
Professor Hatmut Rosa
Triptych City: You advocate "resonance" as a solution to the social and psychological problems caused by acceleration. How to understand the meaning of resonance? Why is resonance the path to happiness?
Rosa: "Resonance" means that people and all things in the world listen to each other and then respond to each other, and get fresh and different content from it to develop themselves. There is a word in German called "Aufhören", which is not only to stop doing something, but also to listen with an open attitude. Stop at a brief moment and open your heart to listen to each other. At this time, there will be resonance, not only being moved by the other party, but also looking for answers in listening. Not only are known answers, but new ideas of experience are extended from communication. Just like you have to realize that your child is communicating with you, don't rush to inform your experience as an elder. I always say that openness is interaction without being bound. In this brief moment, the connection between you and the person you communicate with is open and fluid.
It can resonate with people, art or nature. In a corner of the museum, suddenly stop in front of a certain painting. Because you feel it, it seems to be speaking to you; walking in the forest, for a moment you stop and listen, and maybe you can be moved by the song of the birds; when the sun shines on you, you will feel that the sun is connected to you, giving you more warmth and energy. The musician Leonard Cohen has a lyric: "There is a crack, a crack in everything, and that's how light comes in." (There is a crack, a crack in everything That's how the light gets in) "It's the same in everyday life, sometimes taking a break and enriching yourself in listening and answering. In the long run, at least in the short term, we can break the busy state of the hamster running wheel.
People resonate ©with art at Native Space
Sanlian Humanistic City: The digitalization process is having an all-round impact on life. Will digital means also affect the way they resonate? For example, resonance can also occur in a virtual space?
Rosa: You can't say one-sidedly that it's only possible to reach a state of resonance in real life. Many of us have had experiences that resonate in the virtual world. Sometimes, online chat helps people open up even more because people with "social phobia" don't have to deal with real social situations. Sometimes in the face of strangers online, they will have more courage to express their true thoughts and are more able to empathize. So in the virtual world is not to say that resonance cannot be achieved.
But the problem with the screen is our physical perception. For human beings, thousands of years ago, we were able to read each other's subtle expressions and various movements in face-to-face communication. Resonance is also an interactive response of the body. Virtual technology makes these interactions unrealistic. Resonance, for example, often comes from the eyes and ears. Through the camera, we can only really make eye contact when we stare at the camera. In video calls, it is also difficult to perceive the small ambient sounds around us. Your voice is coming from the computer in front of me, and the reality to which our words and hearing are connected is different.
Therefore, sharing the same physical space is important for resonance. For example, when drinking coffee on the terrace, we will hear the children on the street shouting, feel the smell of food in the wind, and feel the wind blowing through the skin. Together, these create a sense of intimacy. One of the problems with modernity is that we enter a world of no contact. "Don't touch me" has almost become a cultural requirement. But without sensory contact, people can quickly feel alienated and exhausted.
Shared physical space ©Lina Kivaka
In 2020, Sanlian Life Weekly launched the first Sanlian Humanistic City Award, with a view to promoting public enlightenment, stimulating public participation, and promoting the social value and humanistic care of future Chinese cities. With this as a starting point, the Triptych Humanistic City Award will be held in even-numbered years and the Triad Humanistic City Season will be held in odd-numbered years to build a "Humanistic City" innovation ecosystem.
In 2021, the theme of the Sanlian Humanistic City Season is "Crossing Borders", hoping to inspire people to think and face the digitalization of cities and the networking of public spaces. Around this theme, the "Humane City Spectrum Project" will be launched. In mid-November, the release ceremony and summit forum of the Humanistic City Spectrum List will be held in Chengdu. At that time, a two-month humanistic urban photography exhibition will be held to re-examine the transformation of the relationship between the image medium and the urban public space with the theme of "building illusions".