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Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity

Hartmut Rosa,

Jonathan Trejo-Mathys (Translator)

4.36 · Rating details · 150 ratings · 10 reviews

Hartmut Rosa advances an account of the temporal structure of society from the perspective of critical theory. He identifies three categories of change in the tempo of modern social life: technological acceleration, evident in transportation, communication, and production; the acceleration of social change, reflected in cultural knowledge, social institutions, and personal ...more

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Hardcover, 470 pages

Published June 11th 2013 by Columbia University Press (first published November 28th 2005)

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Jun 24, 2017 Alex Hochuli rated it it was amazing

Fuck. It's rare that a book utterly transforms your perspective on things; not just in your explicit positions but also in your tacit assumptions about society and history.

This is a staggering work of social theory, one that convincingly argues for the treatment of time as an essential (perhaps the essential) analytical dimension. I wish I could capture all the repercussions of this perspective in a short post, but I can't, so can only urge everyone to read the book (or at least key sections of Fuck. It's rare that a book utterly transforms your perspective on things; not just in your explicit positions but also in your tacit assumptions about society and history.

This is a staggering work of social theory, one that convincingly argues for the treatment of time as an essential (perhaps the essential) analytical dimension. I wish I could capture all the repercussions of this perspective in a short post, but I can't, so can only urge everyone to read the book (or at least key sections of it).

'Social Acceleration' argues that acceleration is the key distinguishing factor of modernity, but that in late modernity acceleration has sped on beyond certain bounds. This means nothing less than that the project of modernity (individual and political autonomy) has been superseded by the process of modernity (acceleration). Whereas going faster used to be a means of pushing forward modernisation, it now impedes it.

The impacts upon so many areas that concern us when thinking about contemporary society, it's impossible to sum them up. So just to give a brief enumeration: the subjective sense of not having enough time; the fragmentation of identity; the inability to commit to things; bureaucracy appearing as a hurdle to acceleration when previously it was a carrier of it; the growing impotence of the political steering mechanism; the sense that everything is changing fast while at the same time nothing changes - 'frenetic standstill'; the epidemic of depression; the loss of intergenerational trust and the lack of respect accorded to wisdom; the loss of meaning; the 'end of history'...

This has made me fully grasp the nihilism of speed; that the external compulsion to infinitely accelerate into the future is not a way of realising the promise of modernity. The autonomous, external compulsion to accelerate is deleterious to precisely the things for which we started to accelerate in the first place: the ability to seize control of History and construct a world fit for humans. ...more

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Apr 09, 2020 Benjamin Teir rated it it was amazing

Our world has experienced unprecedented exponential development, a dynamization of technology and a shift to the modern globalized society, all in the last century. Rosa's theory of social acceleration brings forth a way to understanding our fastened pace in contemporary society. Due to a more connected society the world can seem smaller. For instance, the red cross displays current global updates from e.g. Myanmar and the Caribbean on their front page. Technological acceleration has brought for Our world has experienced unprecedented exponential development, a dynamization of technology and a shift to the modern globalized society, all in the last century. Rosa's theory of social acceleration brings forth a way to understanding our fastened pace in contemporary society. Due to a more connected society the world can seem smaller. For instance, the red cross displays current global updates from e.g. Myanmar and the Caribbean on their front page. Technological acceleration has brought forward revolutionary communication forums like the radio, tv and finally the internet which helps, among others, the red cross to reach out globally to a large audience and fast. This acceleration of communication, through the fast speed of digital transmission, has accumulated an enormous amount of available information. This information has made it possible for many to retrieve a wide range of knowledge but with the side effect that we can't possibly grasp or comprehend it all.

Time is a relative parameter to all the three stages of social acceleration. Rosa presents studies that show how technological innovations have made our daily lives more efficient but in spite of that, we tend to experience a perception of time scarcity. This places demands on websites, like the red cross, to be appealing and user-friendly to appeal to visitors shortened attention span. Individuals often don't feel that they have the time to scroll through a whole website or maybe even a page. If one cannot find what they are looking for within a few clicks then the risk is that the visitor simply starts looking somewhere else on the web.

The acceleration of social change has also increased our pace of life. We're expected to do more in the same 24 hours than we did before. To handle time pressure Rosa lifts forward that we order our time in a sort of "to-do" list, according to how much we value an issue. Spare time to read through a website and to do further research, in order to make a rational decision, is just not a luxury many feel that they have and so forth it becomes very low on the "to do" list.

Rosas theory of social acceleration, contributing to the exponential growth of diverse markets, has consequently also led to more competition. The overflow of information also makes it hard for an audience to choose the right organisation to invest their time and money in. This out of a strategic communication perspective means that an organisation, website or text, needs to stand out now even more than ever, in order to be seen. ...more

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Oct 07, 2020 Chris rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, politics-social-society

Wir haben keine Zeit, obwohl wir für einzelne Tätigkeiten immer weniger Zeit benötigen. Rosa untersucht auf eindrucksvolle Weise unseren aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Umgang mit "Zeit" und dessen Folgen. Was sich anfangs banal anhören mag, wird immer mehr zu einer sehr aufschlussreichen Lektüre mit zahlreichen Denkanstößen. Obwohl die Habilitationsschrift, auf der das Buch basiert, bereits 2003 finalisiert worden ist, hat das Buch keineswegs an Aktualität verloren. Vielmehr zeigt es gerade auch i ...more

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Nov 09, 2020 Bernard rated it it was amazing

Shelves: psychology-learning

An incredibly sharp book about how society accelerates and how individuals adjust. It really nails down extremely logically how technology, social change and rhythm of life produce the feeling of going faster, and feed one another. I found the book extremely useful to deconstruct the paradox of why technology that « saves » time if combined with industrialisation produces people who have less time. The other finding I found fascinating is how the relationship to time and how the new generations ...more

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Jan 28, 2013 GONZA rated it really liked it

This is a fantastic and interesting book, but still I'm not sure I understood it all. Written by a sociologist it is based on the dromology, or the study of speed and covers the speed of new discoveries, the speed of the people moving across countries and what does that imply when we think about the political part of that all. These essays are really really deep and open the mind to a new way of thinking all the world around us.

Questo libro è stato veramente eccezionale ed interessante, ma ancor ...more

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Feb 11, 2016 Narges rated it really liked it

Hard book to read, a hard argument to follow. but this guy is a genius. it will show you how a brand new theory is being formed.

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Jan 28, 2016 Isadora Wagner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, postmodern, theory, technology, speed

AMAZING!!

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Aug 03, 2011 Guillaume Frasca rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Une plongée angoissante pour mieux comprendre la perte de sens et de direction de nos sociétés modernes, face à l'accélération des techniques et des changements sociaux. ...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Benjamin Thomas Sutpen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

http://sensemania.blogspot.com/2011/0... ...more

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About Hartmut Rosa

Hartmut Rosa

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Hartmut Rosa has been a Full Professor for Sociology and Sociological Theory at the Institute of Sociology at the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany, since October 2005. His areas of study include theories of modernity, sociology of time, communitarianism, and social theory. He is the author of Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity.