And How I’m Learning to Live at Human Speed Again

There are days when I catch myself scrolling through short videos, jumping from one 20‑second clip to another, and it hits me: this is not how my mind was designed to live.

I remember a very different rhythm.

As a kid, evenings meant playing outside until it got dark, not staring into a screen. Weekends meant long conversations with family, Doordarshan or cable shows we waited an entire week for, not auto‑play binge sessions.

I remember power cuts when everything would suddenly go dark and quiet. Instead of getting irritated, we would gather on the terrace or balcony with candles and emergency lights. Neighbors sometimes joined. Someone started telling ghost stories, someone cracked jokes, someone suggested antakshari. The sky felt closer, the stars brighter, and the laughter louder in that darkness. No one was in a hurry to go back inside.

I remember as a young developer, solving a bug meant hours on documentation and deep dives on Stack Overflow, not a quick “Hey, AI, fix this for me.”

Somewhere between dial‑up internet and 5G, between long-form blogs and 15‑second reels, between those slow, shared moments and today’s hyper‑personalized feeds, life quietly switched gears. It went from walking pace to hyper‑speed.

This article is my attempt to understand that shift, to grieve what we’ve lost, and to reclaim something precious: the art of slowing down.

The Invisible Race I Didn’t Remember Signing Up For

If I’m honest, a big part of me has been addicted to speed.

Speed looks productive. It looks ambitious. It looks like “I’m going somewhere in life.” Work cultures reward busyness. Calendars full of back‑to‑back calls, endless notifications, instant replies to every message – all of this is treated as a badge of honor.

Modern knowledge work has quietly adopted an “invisible factory” mindset: work hard, all day, every day, with as little variation as possible. It doesn’t matter if the work is deep or shallow, meaningful or pointless, as long as it looks like constant activity. Productivity experts like Cal Newport argue that this industrial-style expectation is deeply unnatural for the human brain and is a big reason so many of us feel burned out despite “getting so much done.”

I see that in my own life. There are days when I spend more time talking about work than actually doing any real work. I hop from meeting to meeting, task to task, tab to tab – but at the end of the day, I feel strangely empty. Tired, yes. Satisfied, no.

The same attitude has crept into learning. Earlier, learning a new concept or debugging a complex issue meant sitting with a book, an article, or a long thread, thinking, trying, failing, and trying again. Now the temptation is to paste the error into an AI, grab the solution, and move on – without actually understanding what happened.

Speed has become the default. Slowness feels like a luxury, or worse, a weakness.

Before Everything Was Instant: A Different Kind of Richness

Sometimes I replay memories from the pre‑internet or early internet years, and they feel almost unreal compared to life now.

Mornings began with newspapers, not smartphones. Someone in the family would read aloud an interesting article, and a discussion would follow over chai. The news cycle moved slowly; we had time to digest it.

Afternoons meant going outside – cricket in the gully, board games, or simply sitting around talking nonsense with friends. There were no “content creators,” just kids creating their own games. Friendships weren’t tracked by streaks or follower counts; they were built through shared hours, shared silences, and shared secrets.

Entertainment was appointment-based, not on-demand. If a favorite show came on Sunday at 9 am, the entire family gathered for that slot or missed it. There was no “next episode in 3 seconds” button. We waited, we anticipated, and that waiting was part of the joy.

Even learning was slower – and deeper. Want to understand something? You flipped through books, borrowed notes, or walked to the library. Later, you browsed multi-page tutorials, followed long blog series, and read actual documentation line by line. It wasn’t efficient by today’s standards, but it built a certain patience, a certain respect for the process.

Now, when I open an AI chat and get a complete answer in one shot, it feels magical… and also slightly dangerous. Because I know how easy it is to mistake access to an answer with ownership of understanding.

Writing, in particular, used to be a way I slowed down my thinking. Putting thoughts into words forced me to process them carefully, connect ideas, and confront my own confusion. Researchers today describe writing as “a way of slowing down thinking” – a deliberate practice that protects us from cognitive overload in an accelerating world. That resonates deeply with my own experience.

Somewhere along the way, that slow, reflective way of living started to feel outdated. But what if it was actually a kind of wisdom we abandoned too quickly?

How Speed Quietly Rewires the Mind

This isn’t just nostalgia talking. There’s growing evidence that the always‑on, hyper‑fast digital world is reshaping our minds in ways that are hard to ignore.

1. Short‑form content is training us to crave constant stimulation.

Short‑form videos – reels, shorts, quick edits – are designed to deliver maximum dopamine in minimum time. Studies on students and young adults show that high levels of short video consumption are associated with poorer sustained attention, weaker executive control, and more off‑task behavior, even after controlling for total screen time. In simple terms, the more the brain gets used to rapid, high-intensity stimulation, the harder it becomes to stay with anything slow, subtle, or complex.

I feel that in my own habits. A two‑hour movie sometimes feels “too long,” yet I can spend the same two hours swiping through a hundred clips. Long articles feel heavy; quick summaries feel more “efficient.” The tragedy is that depth and nuance often live in the things that take time.

2. Constant digital overload is draining our mental health.

Psychologists point out that continuous exposure to screens, notifications, and information overload can contribute to anxiety, depression, and isolation. The pressure to always be available and “caught up” creates a sense of never having enough time, which fuels stress and burnout.

The phenomenon of doomscrolling – endlessly consuming negative or emotionally charged content – leaves many people mentally exhausted yet unable to stop. I’ve been there: telling myself “just one more scroll” while feeling my mood quietly sink.

3. The feeling of having “no time” is often an illusion.

Interestingly, research on mindfulness-based programs shows that when people intentionally slow down – through practices like meditation and present-moment awareness – they report an increase in “time affluence,” the feeling of having enough time. This feeling is strongly linked to higher well-being and lower stress. In other words, slowing down doesn’t just change the clock; it changes our relationship to time itself.

Slow-living advocates consistently highlight the same benefits: reduced anxiety, improved mental health, deeper relationships, and a greater sense of fulfillment. The science seems to back what many of us intuitively know: a life lived entirely at high speed is not just tiring – it’s impoverishing.

The Paradox: Speed Makes Me Productive, But Not Proud

There’s another paradox at play: speed often boosts my output but reduces my ownership.

When I use AI to generate code, drafts, or ideas, I move faster. But if I’m not careful, I end up shipping work that I don’t fully understand or feel connected to. It’s like outsourcing not just labor, but learning.

Productivity thinkers like Cal Newport and others argue that the real value in today’s economy comes from “deep work” – periods of intense, distraction-free focus on cognitively demanding tasks. Deep work helps us:

• Learn complex things faster
• Produce higher quality output
• Develop rare and valuable skills
• Enjoy work more deeply because we’re fully engaged

Yet deep work is impossible without slowness. You cannot rush understanding. You cannot multitask your way into mastery. And you cannot build a meaningful life by constantly skimming its surface.

The more I reflect on this, the more obvious it becomes: if I want a life that feels rich, not just fast, I have to deliberately re-learn the art of slowing down.

Relearning the Art of Slowing Down

Slowing down doesn’t mean abandoning ambition, productivity, or technology. For me, it’s about choosing how I move through life instead of being dragged by the algorithmic current.

Here are the shifts I’m consciously making – imperfectly, but intentionally.

1. Slowing Down My Work

I’m slowly moving away from worshipping busyness and towards respecting depth.

• Scheduling deep work like a meeting. I block 60–120 minute chunks where I work on a single important task: no notifications, no context switching, no quick tab to social media. This is when I actually build, write, or think at a high level.

• Being realistic about workload. Instead of cramming endless tasks into each day, I’m learning to accept that time and energy are finite. Experts in “slow productivity” suggest designing work around sustainable rhythms, not maximum speed, acknowledging that our brains need cycles of intense effort and genuine rest.

• Using AI as a partner, not a crutch. I let AI help with exploration, alternatives, and scaffolding – but I force myself to read, refactor, and truly understand the solution. The goal is not just to finish the task, but to emerge smarter than when I started.

When I work this way, I may do fewer things in a day, but I end up proud of what I have done. That feeling is worth more than any to‑do list.

2. Slowing Down My Learning

I’m trying to fall back in love with depth.

• Choosing long-form over endless snippets. Instead of consuming ten short explanations of a topic, I deliberately pick one solid book, a detailed article, or a full course and stay with it. Long-form content forces me to sit with complexity, to struggle a bit, and to experience the joy of “Oh, now it finally clicks.”

• Reading documentation again. For technical work, I push myself to open the original docs. It’s slower than asking an AI, but the quality of understanding is different. I notice nuances, edge cases, and underlying concepts that quick answers tend to flatten.

• Writing to think. When my mind feels cluttered, I sit down and write – sometimes for myself, sometimes for others. Research suggests that writing can act as a deliberate slowing of thought, helping us process complexity and avoid being overwhelmed. I’ve felt that: by the time I finish writing, the fog in my head has often cleared.

3. Slowing Down My Attention

Attention is the most precious currency in my life, and I’m learning to spend it more carefully.

• Creating “no-scroll zones.” I avoid opening short‑form video apps during certain parts of the day – mornings, meals, and just before sleep. This simple boundary dramatically reduces the feeling of my mind being constantly pulled in a hundred directions.

• Letting myself be bored again. Instead of filling every micro-gap (elevator rides, queues, traffic) with my phone, I’m experimenting with doing nothing: observing people, staring out the window, letting my thoughts wander. That mental white space, research suggests, is vital for creativity, emotional regulation, and a sense of inner calm.

• Practicing small moments of mindfulness. Even short stretches of paying attention to my breath, my surroundings, or my sensations help me reset. Studies show that such mindfulness practices reduce perceived time pressure and improve overall well-being, feeding directly into the feeling of “time affluence.”

4. Slowing Down My Relationships

I don’t want my relationships to be reduced to blue ticks and quick reactions to stories.

• Phone‑free pockets of time. Shared meals, meaningful conversations, and family visits feel radically different when everyone’s phone is away. The depth of connection increases when I’m not half-distracted by a buzzing device.

• Choosing calls over texts (when it matters). Hearing a loved one’s voice, or seeing their face on a video call, creates an emotional texture that no text can match. The pre‑internet years were full of such real‑time, focused conversations; I want more of that again.

• Being fully present with the people in front of me. Slow living advocates often emphasize that a deliberate, calmer pace of life tends to improve relationships and deepen connections. I’ve begun to experience this firsthand: when I’m not rushing mentally to the next thing, I actually hear people better.

5. Slowing Down My Life as a Whole

Ultimately, slowing down is about designing a life that feels human.

• Protecting unstructured time. I try to keep parts of my week unscheduled. No goals, no “productive” agenda – just space. Sometimes that becomes a walk, sometimes a nap, sometimes a quiet coffee with my own thoughts. It’s in those seemingly “empty” hours that I often reconnect with what truly matters to me.

• Reconnecting with the physical world. Slow living often goes hand in hand with more contact with nature and the tangible world: walking in a park, feeling the weather on my skin, watching the sky change. Even a short daily walk without headphones can act like a reset for my nervous system.

• Redefining “enough.” Perhaps the most radical act of slowing down is deciding what is “enough” – enough money, enough achievements, enough content consumed, enough notifications replied to. Without that internal line, speed will always win.

Bringing Back the Peace We Miss

When I think about “the good old days,” I know I’m not just missing nostalgia; I’m missing a pace that aligned better with how human beings are wired.

Back then, we had:

• Less information, but more digestion
• Less instant communication, but more presence
• Fewer choices, but more appreciation
• Slower tools, but deeper learning

Today’s world is not going to slow down for any of us. AI will get faster. Content will get shorter. Notifications will get smarter at grabbing our attention. The race will keep intensifying.

But here’s the quiet truth that comforts me: I don’t have to run at the speed of the world. I can choose to run at the speed of my soul.

Slowing down, for me, is not about rejecting technology or idealizing the past. It’s about:

• Using powerful tools without letting them hollow out my learning
• Consuming content without letting it consume my attention
• Working hard without sacrificing my mental health
• Being connected to the world without disconnecting from myself and my family

It’s about consciously weaving slowness back into a fast life – like inserting spaces in a long line of code so it becomes readable again.

A Small Invitation

If any of this resonates with you, here’s a gentle invitation.

Tonight, before you sleep, try this:

1. Recall one slow memory from your childhood or early life.
   Maybe it’s a summer evening on the terrace, a long train journey with a book, a Sunday episode everyone waited for, or those long debugging sessions where you finally cracked the problem yourself.

2. Ask yourself what made that moment feel rich.
   Was it the time, the attention, the people, the lack of hurry, the absence of distraction?

3. Choose one small way to recreate that quality this week.
   It could be one phone‑free dinner, one hour of deep work, one long walk without headphones, one article read slowly instead of ten scrolled past.

I’m learning that peace and happiness were never fully lost. They were simply buried under layers of speed, noise, and urgency.

To find them again, I don’t need to go back in time.
I just need to remember that in a world obsessed with faster, choosing to slow down is not falling behind.
It is, quietly and courageously, choosing to live.

Referances

• Why You Should Slow Down - nextbigideaclub
• Nostalgia for a Pre-Internet Era - retiredkalam
• (2024). Writing: The Art of Slowing Down Thinking. Neurology: Education, 3(3), e200155.
• Mental Health in the Digital Age - Dr. Nishtha Dalwani
• What is Slow Living? - Stephanie O’Dea