Perceived stress tracks the rate of acceleration, not absolute pace of life.

Evidence

The sensation of stress expresses nothing about the absolute tempo of life, but only about its change. Therefore it is not at all surprising, though Robinson and Godbey suppose otherwise, that the inhabitants of Russia give relatively high responses concerning the experience of stress and time pressure since 1990 (26 percent of Russian adults indicate, for instance, that they no longer have any time for amusements, compared with “only” 23 percent of Americans), although the pace of life in Russia is presumably still clearly slower than in the U.S.: the rate of acceleration in Russia may be significantly higher in the wake of the transformation after the end of the Soviet Union. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 378

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Time scarcity arises only when growth outpaces acceleration — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 237; Social acceleration is the irreducible master principle of modernization — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 762; Rising depression may be a reaction to unfulfillable acceleration expectations. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 110 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Sensation grows with the logarithm of stimulus strength rather than the strength itself #expands (0.72) — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1997