We cannot allow ourselves to accept as normal a situation in which advances in technology, digitalisation and artificial intelligence, which should improve the amount of time available to us for our personal lives, are instead creating a feeling of living under constant time pressure.
Throughout October, in Barcelona and various locations across Catalonia, we have been celebrating the 13th edition of Time Use Week, known locally as the International Week of Time Schedules and Time Use. This year, more than 150 cities, over 30 experts and more than 3,000 participants (attending both in person and online) have come together to discuss the impact of social acceleration on our wellbeing and our right to time. Despite living in a society where we increasingly have tools to save time, most of us feel that we have less of it. According to data from Catalonia's latest Time Use Survey, conducted in 2024, 54% of the population in our country say they do not have enough time to reconcile work and private life, and that they live with too much uncertainty.
Acceleration is a defining feature of modern societies: doing more things, faster and in less time. 77% of European workers report working at high speed and to very tight deadlines, while 30% of women in Catalonia with family responsibilities experience time poverty. We live in the age of the click, receiving instant responses, watching 15-second videos and expecting deliveries within 24 hours. Hyperconnectivity leaves our brains overstimulated, reducing our capacity for attention and concentration, as well as the time we have for introspection, imagination and creativity.
We live in a society where the notion of progress is associated with productivity and efficiency, and where we are expected to become ever faster, more efficient and more productive. Individually, we do everything we can to organise ourselves better, yet we continue to feel under time pressure and experience work-related, digital and cognitive fatigue.
However, this experience of acceleration is not the same for everyone. Context, geographical location, and economic, social and personal circumstances are all factors that shape how we use our time and are clear sources of inequality. Time poverty is influenced by gender, employment status, whether or not we have children, social class, background and where we live.
Social acceleration is a structural trend and must therefore be addressed collectively and structurally. Time-related stress is partly influenced by individual decisions, but to a much greater extent it is shaped by the social, economic and institutional systems in which we live. Addressing the widespread unease caused by time pressure requires the involvement of all institutions and organisations, through measures and strategies that enable us to slow down and live better.
How can time policies contribute to slowing down and reducing these inequalities?
Technological progress, digitalisation and AI must serve society and contribute to shared progress. They should free us from time spent simply surviving, allowing us to transform it into constructive time and time devoted to contributing to society.
In the workplace and business sector, new working models and approaches to the organisation of working hours are needed, taking into account the impact of circadian rhythms and insufficient sleep on productivity and creativity. We must encourage and protect physical environments that foster collective imagination and creativity, particularly when digital environments make it harder to create spaces for people to meet. We must also protect non-working time by ensuring effective digital disconnection during periods of rest. We need to make further progress towards greater flexibility and autonomy over working hours, as these are generally less accessible to workers with lower levels of qualification, and introduce measures to reduce these inequalities. These measures have been put forward by various speakers and illustrated through the different experiences presented during the event, demonstrating that they are feasible.
We must champion the 15-minute city and neighbourhoods that make better use of people's time. This means investing in local infrastructure and services, including care services, reducing commuting and travel times, and moving towards zero-time mobility. Reducing travel times requires a holistic approach to urban planning and the development of polycentric cities that bring services and everyday activities closer to where people live. The cities that make up the Local and Regional Network for Time Policies have been pursuing these strategies for some time. The experience of Barcelona and many cities across the Barcelona metropolitan area deserves particular recognition.
We must call for an ethical approach to technology and AI that prevents premature access, excessive use, exposure to harmful content and infinite scrolling. The need for AI to be developed as public infrastructure and a common good has also been highlighted: AI that is aligned with social values and whose design and algorithms can be overseen by citizens.
In conclusion, we cannot accept social acceleration as the norm. It is detrimental to health, equality, democracy and economic sustainability. Technology does not necessarily force us to move faster. Rather, as Judy Wajcman argues, it is the culture of digital capitalism and our social priorities that drive us towards particular patterns of use.
This is the paradox of time pressure: although automated tools should save us time, cultural expectations rise to absorb the time we gain. Washing machines, for example, have meant that we wash our clothes much more frequently.
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