We are living in an age of acceleration. All manner of goods can be ordered online and delivered within hours. The next date is a swipe away. Even exercise and meditation are now accessed via apps and completed in minutes. This constantly increasing rate of technological advancement and social change is speeding up the pace of business and life itself, leaving most of us feeling time-poor.
The Growing Business of Helping Customers Slow Down
We are living in an age of acceleration. The constantly increasing rate of technological advancement and social change is speeding up the pace of business and life itself, leaving most of us feeling time-poor. How are people coping? Increasingly, by seeking out opportunities to slow down. They can do so in three key dimensions: embodied deceleration, which is the physical slowing down of the body; technological deceleration, which is not giving up technology, but carefully controlling its use and instead focusing on face-to-face communication; and episodic deceleration, which is engaging in only a few activities per day — in our data, walking, eating, sleeping — and, crucially, reducing the amount of consumption choices to be made. Companies should begin to offer more services and experiences that allow people to achieve one or more of these goals.